codell, yao ming was expected (by the mainstream media and other nba players) to be a bust. that is not high expectations. yes, you can argue that all #1 picks, by definition, have high expectations. but the thing is, a lot of people thought houston made a big mistake in picking ming over jay williams (ha!) and mike dunleavy (ha!) and caron butler (ha!). so his expectations were not as high as say lebron james' will be next year. he's expected to be successful because he is the concensus #1 pick.
For those of you who wonder how Amare won over Yao: Ballots are mailed. Voters vote. A winner is announced. Maybe if Yao got the four or five extra touches per game that he should've had, he'd have won the award today. I say that the Rockets waited until way too late in the season to utilize him in the offense like they should have.
Just be happy that all the complaining about him and his hype and being chinese were the reasons why he had any success this year will have a better chance of dying down over the summer. The anti-Yaos (mostly all on other boards) can pat themselves on the back, take a little time off and get back to hating Ming next year when they go blaming the NBA marketing machine for making the hoop bigger for Yao because he averages 18 10 and 3. STuart
