Sorry guys, my Chinese skills ran into trouble because the following is a Taiwanese news-article, written in traditional Chinese characters. I'm sure W&S or others can translate it... I'm REALLLLLYYYYY not wanting to raise any false hopes, but I figure this is the best way to get the attention of those traditional Chinese speakers who might be able to translate it fully and tell us what it says. But I'm *PRETTY* sure it says that Yao Ming has FIBA approval for the draft! http://bbs7.sina.com.cn/sports/view.cgi?forumid=89&postid=276286 (Note, this is a news article reposted to a Chinese discussion forum. I'm lookin' for confirmation/denial asap, and apologies way ahead of time if this is a false alarm.)
Early confirmation from a couple of my traditional-Chinese reading, but NON-basketball following friends is that this article does INDEED say definitively that Yao Ming has received FIBA approval! I'm still looking for someone that understands Yao Ming's situation to look at the article. But my confidence level just went *WAY* up. It's the middle of the day (afternoon?) in China right now, so this is the time for things to happen. I hope this is what we've all been waiting for.
dammit man, why wasn't I paying attention in my Chinese classes? I can translate a little of that for you though...I see one part that mentions something about nba.com/china and something else talking about the NBA...come on W&S wake up soon!!!
It does say Yao Ming already got FIBA approval. But since that article is from Taiwan media, I won't just take its words just yet since they are normally not an original source for NBA or CBA related news. They usually just translate news from US media and add some of their own imagination. So they might just went a bit too far in their translation.
Good going heech, Even if the article says that Ming has gotten FIBA approval it still has to be confirmed or denied like you mentioned. I hope it's right but I would be surprised if it did happen so quickly because Yao's representatives and the Sharks were still negotiating with no immediate deal in sight.
Yikes, the posting on the sina.com forum has been *deleted*. That can't be a good sign (but might be for other reasons... copyright? traditional-characters?). Stay tuned! Thanks Jing, I'm glad at least someone was able to read it and confirm it before it was deleted. For those who didn't see it, it just said that Yao Ming had received FIBA approval, and that it was almost a sure thing that Yao Ming would be drafted first in the NBA draft. It then went on to rehash a lot of other of the common themes from this week (nba.com/china).... Rockets comments on Yao Ming, etc...
