CBA offical said :"Yao will be back with China NT after the playoffs"

Yao and his parents on his parents on his behalf was offered a choice. They ASKED him to play basketball and laid out the terms and benefits he will receive in the future. They didn't FORCE him to become one. He also could have (and most likely did) negotiate some of the terms.

As for opening a starbucks, he could have done that all he wanted (had he turned down the basketball offer). Actually, he still could, pending his negotiation with starbucks.

 

You don't seem to understand that during the season there is no time to really improve an individual's game. Everything is team focused and centers on players doing what they are ALREADY good at, not practicing and developing new skills.

New skills are developed during the summer. Ask Jordan or Reggie Miller or Karl Malone when they made their biggest improvements and to a man these (and the others among the best players in the world) players will tell you that the summer is the time to develop new skills.

If Yao is playing with the CNT over the summer, again he will be focused on team goals rather than individual ones and we will continue to see a relatively flat development curve. If Yao is allowed to practice and play against the best players over the summer, he will make huge strides and will improve his game dramatically.

 

Nowadays many college graduates miss the "good old days"
when the government guarantees a permanant job for each
of them (the so-called iron bowl, you have a job until rotten
no matter how you suck).

 

snowmt... copying me I see.

 

We all knew this was part of Yao's contract when we drafted him, we shouldn't be suprised or pissed.

 

Well, I guess a lot of people are like me: pissed but not suprised.

 

Playing outside of nba level competition probably REGRESSES Yao's improvements. He'll have to use half an NBA season to get back to the level he was at the end of the previous season.

It's like having to learn all over again if he gets used to soft competition.

 

NBA players never have time to practice skills during the season. Team practice is completely focused on playing to strengths that individual players already have. Plays are drawn up accordingly and players practice those plays. Individual skills have to be practiced/improved in the offseason.

With Yao constantly going back to China and practicing against scrubs, there's no way he'll improve. In all seriousness, the Rockets SHOULD invite the CNT over to train in the U.S. against Rockets players or something.

 

Sure, they will force. That's why I said long time ago athletes in China have SHORT careers because these officials just milk them for private gain. These officials only stay in power for a couple of years in their positions before getting promoted, so why would they care about the careers of athletes?

 

Here's the schedule for the CNT this summer from the Sina article:

5/3start of training
5/27

 

They might miss the safety of the job, but they won't like the salaries of the old jobs. If given a choice, do you think they would choose to go back the old ways?

As a matter of fact, would you go back to the old ways?

 

I guess Yao can refuse to return to China this summer if he wants to. He can find an excuse such as doing a surgery on his toe.

Yao is too big for the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) to handle. His popularity, financial and political influence are way bigger than the whole CBA combined.

 

Here's the schedule for the Chinese NT from the Sina article:

5/3 Start of NT training
5/27 Break in training for the national games
6/10 Resume NT training
6/21 - 6/29 Games against US Team (probably against some former US college players and NBA drop outs)
7/14 - 7/23 Four Nations Invitational
7/25 - 7/31 Some sort of competition with Russian sounding name
8/10 - 8/20 Tour of Australia
9/08 - 9/12 Asian Championships in Qatar
9/19 End of CNT activities

 

Looks like it's going to be another brutal summer for the CNT with lots of travelling involved. I wish it was possible for Yao to skip most of the training and warm-up competitions and only participate in the Asian championships. Maybe he can use his injuries as an excuse.

 

I'd have a better feeling about Yao if I heard him saying things like "the Houston Rockets are my number one priority."

Great players work off season to add to their game. Over the course of his years in Houston, we watched Hakeem learn how to manage post position, shoot free throws, score on the turn-around, make the correct pass out of the post and develop post moves that exploited his quickness advantage over the rest of humanity.

The basic difference between Yao now and Yao midway thru his rook season is that he speaks better English now.

 

How exactly is this gonna benefit the CNT? Yao staying in Houston and resting up and training with NBA players would benefit them more

 

Why is this surprising? Every national team will call its best players back before the tournament. Spain will call Gasol back, and Argentina will call Manu back. It is up to players to tell their nation teams if they accept the invitation or not.

Of course Chinese NT is more difficult to deal with. Yao had agreement with them before he joined the NBA and those officials will be angry if their authorities are challenged. But I believe Yao and his team are powerful enough to negotiate at least. Show some guts and they will retreat. At least Yao should try.

Now his altitude is like: "OK, I want to stay in US if possible, but if CNT calls me, then I will go back". Well, CNT definitely will call him, if I were the official; I would have done the same thing! My job is to let CNT win as many tournaments as possible! If we lose the tournament by accident, and we don't call Yao back, can you image what the media will say? They won't praise me for letting Yao rest, they will criticize me lose the championship because I didn’t call our best player back, simple is that.

 

except they get plenty of rest and training here in the U.S.

those guys aren't going to play meaningless tournaments, the Spanish team probably understands that rest and NBA training will probably benefit Gasol more than training with some scrubs

 

The HOuston ROckets Organization has to ask the pardon. Yao can't do that because he agreed to it in his contract. I'm sure yao knows he'd be way better off staying here in the offseason and he said so himself on Access Ahmad. It was something along the lines of "damn amare actaully has a jumpshot this year. If he could actually develop a jumpshot, imagine what i can do"

 

Damn, looks like Yao can kiss summer rest and improve his game good-bye.