Eat it, Troy. http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/sports/1472684 Rockets now like what they see By JONATHAN FEIGEN Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle Rockets players had gathered for weeks at Westside Tennis Club for the customary offseason workouts. But this time, the Rockets players left with parting gifts. Rockets coaches made sure players who filtered through the team's training facilities left with videotapes of center Yao Ming, the evidence that helped convince the Rockets to make Yao the first player taken in the NBA draft Wednesday. The team had placed judgment of Yao's talents and prospects in the hands of a skeptical jury of his would-be peers and waited for the reaction. "Especially veteran guys look at tapes and say, `Why are you giving me a tape of a rookie? We'll see him at training camp,' " Rockets forward Maurice Taylor said. "But it was important for us in this situation. No one knew what he could do, or anything about him. Giving us the tapes let us know what he can do. Once we saw the tapes, everyone on our team looked at him in a different light. "Before (we) saw him on tape, everyone was kind of skeptical about what he could do. All we saw was the three-minute workout ESPN showed. The coaches gave us tape of him against the Dream Team (in the 2000 Olympics). He held his own. He gets to come in with good players and get to grow. He's 21 years old. He's going to get better." Before they began their own scouting, Yao's future teammates had only seen seconds of evening news highlight moments and snippets of his jogging exhibition in a Chicago workout. Steve Francis and Cuttino Mobley had done little to hide their reservations. But Monday, Francis told Rockets officials he had checked out the tapes and decided, "This guy can play." By Wednesday, Mobley had become a believer. "Those tapes gave us a little more feeling for what his skills are and what he can do for us," Mobley said. "You could see what he could do for us. It's pretty exciting. We got the No. 1 pick and the guy is skilled. He's not an average 7-6 dude." The Rockets players discovered Yao's skills not only are well above average, but they should fit well with the Rockets' needs. A small team just got large. A poor shooting and passing frontcourt picked up a player whose strengths are shooting and passing. Yao averaged 32.4 points, making 72.1 percent of his shots, and averaged 19 rebounds in 34 China Basketball League games last season. He averaged 10.5 points per game, on 63.9 percent shooting, and six rebounds in the 2000 Summer Olympics. "This guy can move," Rockets guard Moochie Norris said. "He's skilled. He's crafty with the ball. He's good around the basket. He can block shots. Athletic. Run the floor. I like him. I'm excited. "Just watching him on tape, I can't say enough. We're getting help on the inside. It will be great for our team. That's what we need, some inside help. We think our perimeter is strong enough to win games. Now we've got the inside presence. I think it's going to be the difference." Beyond all those details, Norris' touch as an amateur scout uncovered that Yao is tall. Norris' experience as a penetrating guard let him know the difference a 7-5 center can make to dissuade opponents from attacking the Rockets' basket. "I was just thinking about him being that big," Norris said. "I know I go to the basket sometimes when we play Dallas. I see (7-6) Shawn Bradley and I want to turn around. It will be good to have teams, when they get by us, to see Yao Ming back there." Norris said the Rockets have noticed the excitement building around town. But he and Taylor said that to them, that is not the point. They checked out Yao to see what he could do on the court, not at the ticket window. They evaluated his skills, then pictured those skills mixing with theirs. "I like what I see," Taylor said. "He's a big guy with a lot of skill. He's going to help us. We look at him as an addition to our team. He's going to come in and help us. We're excited about playing basketball with him. For us, it's all about basketball. Numbers aside, he's going to have a presence. He's 7-6. Whenever you have a 7-6 guy, it changes the game. Look at Shawn Bradley, and Shawn Bradley is not even half the player Yao Ming is. If you put him out on the floor, he changes the game. Us having a 7-6 guy who can play changes us. "Obviously, we'll have a better presence on the defensive backboard. I think it makes us a better running team because when you have a guy 7-6 rebounding, he can outlet. He can outlet the ball to Steve so we can run a little more. Also, being in the West, we need a big team. Getting a big man puts us ahead of the guys fighting for the last playoff spot. The teams we're fighting with are smaller teams like Seattle and Phoenix. Us getting him changes the dynamics of the Western Conference." With that, Taylor offered advice. No longer a prospect to be considered, Yao has become a teammate to help the cause. "Be ready," Taylor said. "You're playing in the Western Conference with the best big men in the world. You have to be ready." But the sentiment was that if Yao is ready to handle the job he was given Wednesday night, he would change the team eager to add him to its fraternity. "I feel like it's the start of something good," Rockets forward Eddie Griffin said. "We're going to be a good team."
THANK GOD! This is the best thing we could ask for in terms of team chemistry. Finally, the players are excited about him. Some thoughts. First, I'm surprised the players hadn't seen tape of Yao earlier. I guess they have their lives and it's not their place or job to sift through tape with the staff and give their opinions. Mo's quote revealed a lot about the offseason/draft norms in the NBA: "Why are you giving me tape of a rookie? We'll see him at draft camp." With that, I know I really don't know what Steve and Cuttino have said/done, but I think their judgement of Yao has been really immature. They soured on the guy before they knew jack about him. They have to know they didn't know jack about him, but they were down on him before they had any real information, and they know it. In their defense, I can understand that they might have been resisting all the attention Yao was receiving. Sort of like how the success of the Titanic pissed me off. At the same time, that's very unprofessional. And I think bias toward Yao as foreign had a lot to do with it. Finally, related to that, I don't think the players give fans enough credit. Do they really think we're just interested in him because he's Chinese and 7' 6''? Do they not think that we very much care what he brings to the table, that he's not a big stiff? While we're not professionals and not as knowledgeable about the game as they are, we do care about what skills he has, and they don't give us enough credit if they think that we're so easily tickled. That article seemed to indicate a so-much-wiser-than-thou tone that really irritates me, even if it's mostly justifiable. Yao has skills? Hey, those fans aren't completely clueless after all!
Very good to hear. Of course, what am I to think now? This must be some sort of Fracis smokescreen in order to give him more leverage in his contract negotiations! A contract that he's obviously not interested in signing, so we'd better start looking for other options at point guard! Isn't that right, Troy?
First off I wanna say I was initially very upset by Cat's comments and Steve's comments (via Troy), which I didn't know whether or not to believe til trusted posters bore them out. But I mellowed on this. They're hearing the same stuff, from both sides, we all are. And I sometimes have a hard time remembering they're younger than I am (I'm 33) and I sometimes have a hard time remembering how reactionary I was then and how easily I could be brought around to at least opening my mind by reason and logic and plain old facts. Like they were. Also wanna say I noticed right after posting this new topic that it had been posted in another thread. Sorry, Clutch. Trying to observe the new topic conservation, but the Chron time stamp made me think it was only five minutes old when I read it, so I thought it was new. Apologies to all. Even so I think I gave it a little tiny extra flavor I would like to repeat here. So I will. Eat it, Troy.
I'm trying to figure out how this night could end on a better high for the Houston Rockets. Michael Jordon offers to clone himself for Rocket use...? Ok, I give up, I can't. This is just the icing on the cake. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. My only lingering concern is out the door. These guys are obviously going to give Yao a chance, and that's all anyone can ask for. I bet Charles Barkley and everyone else spewing negative comments about Yao haven't seen any of these highlights, either. Trust the ones who have.
LOL It's so easy to pick on the challenged. I hope he's able to find a "special" forum where his views are welcome and everyone gets a reward.
barkley can't help but to fall into that trap of stereotyping a foreign player that they don't know about....like some of our members on this board. take a proven player like caron butler he said. i love to have caron butler but at #1 ??? barkley don't realize that he just don't like ming b/c he's not some athletic, cross over dribbling, above the rim type player.
I was really pissed by Kenny's and Charles' comments about language barriers, not because they weren't valid points, but because they were spreading more misinformation about Yao and his English skills. I'm not a big fan of David Stern, but his crack at Kenny and Charles about their English cheered me up tremendously. Very clever way to undermine the weight of their comments without making a scene.
I don't think there was anything wrong with what Steve or Cat originally said. They were skeptical, just like Kenny and Chuck were at the draft. We knew more about Ming and weren't as skeptical. These guys have other things to do, like having major surgery, and don't sit around studying tape and scouting reports. They are NBA players, they want to see it up close and personal. Sheesh, they both said they are happy with the pick and people still want to dump on them. Also, about Mo saying the fans will come to just see the big man from china, they are totally right. The seats were empty all year. I'm sure they understand that nobody wants to watch a losing team, but I don't even think they sold out the season opener. The majority of the team played hard, through injuries and line up changes, I can understand how they feel like the fans didn't care about the effort they put forth. Now there's talk everywhere about people wanting to see Ming and the Asian community is issuing statements, it does sorta feel like they have become a traveling circus. If you think about it though, it makes sense all over the league. Players play to win and to make money before they worry about entertaining the fans. Fans want to see the team win and want to be entertained, we don't care about what's going on or what's wrong with them, we just want to see success. It's just the way it is.
Exactly right. Steve and Cat only heard rumors about Ming's game and didn't want to take him at #1. People on this board only heard RUMORS of Steve and Cat's attitude toward Ming, and were ready to bash them, and trade them. Now pro-Ming comments start coming out from those guys. Maybe they learned from waiting for more information. Maybe the Francis Bashers can follow their example and learn to wait for more information to, instead of knee-jerk reactions to mere rumors.
I find it kind of funny that the Rockets didn't give out Ming tapes to players until recently. Why wouldn't they have done it from the very beginning and talk about Yao Ming's game with him and showed them some highlight reels? It sounds like the Rockets players just didn't know anything about him, and were rightfully worried. I think a lot of stuff negative stuff could have been avoided if the players were informed from the beginning. I mean jeez, it sounds like us fans were more informed about Yao Ming than Steve and Cuttino.
That was a grand slam shot by Mr. Stern....priceless I have never really liked Mr. Stern but he has show leadership and guidance for the NBA. I heard something yesterday on the Radio that said Mr. Stern made a comment 10 years ago about how the NBA wants to go worldwide. Everyone scuffed at the idea, foreign players cannot compare to american players. Well 10 years later, the foreign players are dominating the draft. I may have questioned Mr. Stern in the past but he knew what he was doing.
