HOUSTON -- While Houston Rockets center Yao Ming prepares for the 2008 Olympics with his Chinese National team, he wants the world to know that he is thrilled to have Sacramento Kings forward Ron Artest as a teammate. Artest was traded to the Rockets Tuesday in a multi-player deal that cannot be confirmed by the NBA until Aug. 14. "I would tell him that he is very welcome to join our Houston Rockets," Yao said. "He's the guy we need right now to make our team stronger." A report earlier this week quoted Yao as being worried about how Artest would affect team chemistry and concerned that Artest would continue to have off the court issues. Yao said Friday in an interview with FOX 26 Sports from Nanjing, China that he believes his thoughts were blown out of proportion. "If something I said would make Ron feel uncomfortable I apologize," Yao said. "I'm really sorry about that. "Because I still don't know him very well. Still by the time we stay together obviously I will fix it." ...that's all my phone would let me copy...more on the website... http://www.myfoxhouston.com/myfox/p...n=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=6.1.1
can't wait for yao to come back and mesh with the team again along with artest does anyone know if yao will return to houston when the olympics are over or when team china is eliminated?
good find thats more like the yao we all know without have his words taken out of context. you know what would be funny is that if Yao and Ron became really close as the season progresses. thats not to say I have no worries about team chemistry but I have faith in all our other guys and the desire of ron that chemistry wont be an issue,
i can pretty much guarantee that Yao will only return after the entire olympics events and ceremonies are over. He is the face of the olympics this year he will be staying for sure. doesnt yao usually stay until the end of august in china usually anyway?
good post. you knew what Yao meant all along. its just that because Yao is a fob....sometimes he just doesn't get to say exactly what he means to say because his vocab is limited. that and the stupid media twisting it all up for him.
his english is very good. he just made a bad joke. i don't think blinebury meant anything by it (look at how he incorporated scola's comments of artest coming here into his article). yao is not perfect. maybe yao thought it was funny but in reality it's not.
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I have no doubt in mind these two can be good friends... just like Stevie and Yao became close friends when he first came in the league. Yao seems to be popular among his teammates, easy to get along with, and non-confrontational.... I don't think he will do anything that will irk Artest. Artest seems loyal and hopefully will have Yao's back on and off the court. Bad news is... I have a source who is good friends with hometown kid, Ronnie Price, who spent his first couple seasons with the Kings and he told me the following: (a) Artest is a big a-hole and (b) Bibby keeps to himself and his entourage and doesn't hang out with anybody else outside of basketball. But, despite that, I still feel we have too many good characters on our team to have significant chemistry issues.
yea, you could see the anger in his voice whenever he recounts that detroit incident and rightfully so. so you have to know artest didn't like those comments even if it was a joke. but i applaud him for being a man, reached out to yao, and fixing all the problems before they get worse. outside of that detroit incident, dude has been a pretty good guy. and in every interview so far, he's always saying that he'll listen to whatever adelman, tracy, and yao say. the media needs to stop pounding on these comments and let go.
Great, look how many stories the media is able to cover from just a comment that has been misdirected!
That was due to his girl friend (now is wife) who was in China during that time, right now his wife is in Houston, Yao should not stay in China very long, but like you said, would be after the event is closed.
