Chron: Olajuwon, Yao face scrutiny as their careers crisscross

Olajuwon, Yao face scrutiny as their careers crisscross

By DAVID BARRON
Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle

As the Rockets welcomed one foreign-born big man Wednesday night on TNT, Fox Sports Net salutes the man who broke the mold at 8 p.m. Sunday.

Hakeem Olajuwon will be profiled Sunday night on FSN's Beyond the Glory. The hour-long documentary series can, on occasion, seem more like authorized biography than the tell-all genre espoused by ESPN's SportsCentury series, but the Olajuwon show, however, does focus on a couple of touchy topics.

In addition to the established stories about Olajuwon's rediscovery of his Islamic faith and his role in the Rockets' back-to-back NBA titles, subjects include his failed relationship with Lita Spencer Richardson, the mother of his daughter Abisola, and the dispute with Rockets management that resulted in allegations that Olajuwon was faking injury in an effort for a new contract.

Interview subjects include Christopher Pond, the basketball nomad who saw Olajuwon play in Africa and helped arrange his arrival in the United States; former University of Houston coach Guy V. Lewis; college teammates Reid Gettys and Michael Young; former Rockets general manager Steve Patterson; Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich; and former teammates Clyde Drexler, Kenny Smith and Robert Horry.

Olajuwon was the first foreign-born player taken with the first pick in the NBA draft and, as memory serves, he did OK. His successor, Yao Ming, was met with something of a jaundiced eye by TNT analysts (and former Rockets) Smith and Charles Barkley on Wednesday night.

"There's a language barrier," Smith said. "In a close game, it will be tough. You're talking in basketball language that's not structural English. In the last two minutes of the game, Rudy won't have time to have a translator over there, and that might be something very critical for guys coming over who don't speak (English) fluently."

Barkley, who said he would have taken Caron Butler of Connecticut or Jay Williams of Duke with the first pick, said, "The people in Houston are going to have to be patient. When you draft now, you're drafting for the future."

Barkley's primary contribution to inflamed rhetoric, however, was to cite college basketball's miserable graduation numbers and to describe the sport as a sham. That would put him at odds with the likes of CBS analyst Billy Packer, but Packer might agree with Barkley's comments that something must be done to stem the tide of younger players declaring for the draft.

"This (draft night) is one of the highlights of every basketball player's life," he said. "But we need to come up with some sort of agreement with (colleges) and high school basketball.

"Everybody thinks they're good enough to play in the NBA, and they're not. It's unfortunate that some guys get their hearts broken. Their freeloading family and friends are going to tell you to go pro because they want their money, but some of these guys are not ready for the NBA. They're brokenhearted tonight, and that's sad."

 

Here's a funny blurb from the same Barron article:

HOUSTON CHRONICLE

View from Visser

-- Lesley Visser was billed as the Occidental Tourist a year and a half ago, when she visited Shanghai and interviewed Yao Ming for HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel. With Yao about to become a tourist in this country, Visser thinks Houston will like what it sees and hears.

"His skills are not unlike those of a young Hakeem Olajuwon -- a shot blocker, a high post center, great hands, can run the floor," Visser said Thursday. "He'll have to put on a lot of weight, but Wilt Chamberlain was skinny when he came into the NBA, and so was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar."

Visser said Yao has a serious side and a playful side -- not to mention a firm grasp of the bottom line.

"He only spoke once to me in English. The rest was through a translator," she said. "I think he was making $80,000 for the Shanghai Sharks, and I said to him, `You stand to earn great wealth. How do you think you'll handle it.?'

"He said -- and this was the only time he spoke English to me -- `I'll get used to it.' "