Could Yao Ming be "lurking"....

buckaroo · Jun 7, 2002

Here are some assorted excerpts from an interesting article(circa September 11, 2000) i stumbled upon..

http://www.ccyaa.org/Great-Wall.html

Yao, who'll turn 20 on Sept. 12, is wind: fresh, unbridled, animated by the thought of all the places he might go. He spends his free time as any American adolescent would, lurking in chat rooms behind a pseudonym (Sabonis) or loping into a Starbucks for his favorite drink (iced latte) and perhaps a moment's rumination on a faraway place where people call a small a "tall." In 1998 Nike invited Yao to one of its summer camps. After watching him drop a couple of three-pointers on him during an evening scrimmage, Michael Jordan said, "We want him right now. I'm calling [Chicago Bulls vice president of basketball operations] Jerry Krause."

In China, no bit of Jordaniana escapes notice, including the detail that Jordan so despises Krause that he avoids speaking to him. So back home people knew: Yao must have made quite an impression. "He's a Rik Smits who can block shots and rebound," Duffy says. "Yao Ming and Tyson Chandler [a 7'1" high school star in Compton, Calif.] are the two best teenage big men in the world."

Both of Yao's parents--his 6'9" father and 6'3" mother--played basketball for China. "That's where China's one-child policy comes back to haunt," says Terry Rhoads, sports marketing director for Nike-China. "If Mr. and Mrs. Yao had had five boys, there'd be an NBA franchise in Shanghai right now."

Yao Ming, even though a lot of people say he is like Rik Smits, thinks Rik Smits isn't good enough for him to copy. He says, 'I have everything Rik Smits has, yet Rik Smits doesn't have some things I have.'"
Click to expand...

rockHEAD · Jun 7, 2002

Q: Could Yao Ming be "lurking"....
A: ANYONE can be "lurking"

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Could Yao Ming be "lurking"....

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