Chron: Yao Gets First Taste of Life in NBA Fish Bowl

Yao gets first taste of life in NBA fish bowl
By JONATHAN FEIGEN
Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/sports/1536696

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- The NBA had left town more than a year before, taking with it every movable reminder the Grizzlies ever played here. But as Yao Ming sat on the side of the GM Place court, encircled by Western media and surrounded by curiosity about the first player taken in this year's draft, he was in many ways closer to the NBA than ever.

He did not look out of place.

"That's impossible for me to get used to everything right away," Yao said. "The basketball in America is like the culture, just like a foreigner learning a foreign language. It's difficult to learn a foreign language. It is also difficult for me to learn the basketball here."

Yao and the Chinese national team were in Vancouver to prepare for this month's World Championships with a "warm-up" game today against the Canadian national team. They had just completed the first of two practices Thursday.

Yao and coach Wang Fei would later visit with Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich. Yao would sign more autographs, pose for more pictures and shake more hands than he said he could count. And he would face the media that had followed him from the airport to the team hotel to a welcoming reception the day he had arrived.

This was Yao's first taste of what his life had become. For all the adjustments he said he would have to make with his move to Houston and the culture of the NBA, he seemed at ease with the task.

"I need some ... time, my time," he said. "These two months I had a lot of phone calls to my family that made me feel good. Everybody should understand until now I haven't played any, even a single, NBA game yet."

Alternating between answers in English and Chinese that were translated by Chinese team manager and player agent Xia Song, Yao joked easily. He spoke often about the adjustments and was clearly unaccustomed to having a dozen or so media members crowded around him.

Asked if he would have a lot to get used to, he said: "Yes, like this," nodding toward the microphones, cameras and notepads.

But he did not seem rattled, slipping in examples of the sense of humor the Rockets' delegation to Beijing found so endearing.

When asked how he felt about the media attention he had received since landing in Vancouver -- and will get next week in Oakland and at the World Championships in Indianapolis -- Yao described the differences between the Chinese and Western media.

"I think in China, the media, the bodies are a little size," he said. "They can't face me."

Though at 7-5 he will have a hard time finding anyone in the North American media who will look at him eye to eye, Yao, 21, had no doubt he will have a lot to learn when he meets NBA centers happy to pick on someone their own size.

"He has many things to learn in the NBA, many new things," Wang said. "It will be very hard for him."

Asked what will be most difficult, Wang said: "Everything. Language. Practice. Games. Travel. Home game, road game, many games. Because of Yao Ming's personality, I think Yao will grow up faster than other players. This guy is smart enough and will work hard enough."

The Rockets also believe the adjustment will be tough but that Yao is well-suited to make it.

"I had a telephone conversation that was about an hour," Tomjanovich said. "His value system is sort of a throwback to a different era. He feels a responsibility to be the best he can be not only for Chinese basketball fans but for all basketball fans. It's a way of looking at things that, `I have this opportunity, I have talents, to go and be the best (I) can be.'

"There's so much to learn in basketball coming from one level to the next. What I do like is he is comfortable in different situations. He can be a good player. But he has a chance to be a really, really good player."

The Rockets, Tomjanovich said, will have an interpreter available when Yao joins the team in mid-October after the Asian Games. But he added Yao told him one of his goals is to not need the interpreter as quickly as possible.

Yao said that for now his emphasis is on preparing for the World Championships. He said his game is about 85 percent of where it needs to be by the start of the tournament in Indianapolis on Aug. 29.

With that in mind, Tomjanovich said he was sensitive to the Chinese agenda and would be careful not to interfere. He said he was excited about tonight's game and hoped with a conversation or two here and next week in Oakland "just to give him a feel for me. At least he'll know me and hopefully feel comfortable."

Added Tomjanovich: "I enjoy seeing the guy play and trying to project how we can use the different things the guy can do. I am excited about that. I have to make it very clear. This is not a Rockets thing here. They're playing in the World Championships. I coached in it. It was important to me. I know how important it is to the Chinese. I don't want to be a distraction in any way."

Tomjanovich said he could not predict what kind of impact Yao would have this season or how long it would take to make the adjustments to the NBA.

"I have learned to not have great expectations," Tomjanovich said. "But do I have a good, positive feeling? Yeah. But let's let it happen."

Yao said he also was not concerned with expectations, the timetable or even first impressions when the Chinese game against the United States on Aug. 31 is televised.

"In China we say: No matter who you are, make people recognize your face first," Yao said.

If that means to let people know the person rather than the deed, he started the process Thursday. The Rockets can only hope he takes to the rest of his tasks as smoothly.