The latest Shaq outburst happened recently, according to the Orange County Register, he was quoted as saying, "The only way to beat your daddy in the All-Stars was they had to open it up in China." He was referring to what he would tell his kids someday about why he didn't start in the All-Star Game. Forget any kind of harm or anything some are going to say he is trying to inflict. THIS IS A FALSE STATEMENT, is it not????? Last I heard, Yao was leading in the "Paper Ballots", which are American ballots only. They are the ones you punch out at basketball games, or Footlocker's, or some grocery stores....you get the idea....They are American votes only. Yao led in those votes as well, but no one wants to talk about that. I have tried to find some confirmation of this somehow, a link for proof, but am unable. Someone who knows how to do that can check.....PTI did mention that the paper ballots were very close, but I have heard he beat Shaq out on these.
you are certainly right. I went to Bulls Rockets game last week and those chinese guys sitting by me just bashing yaoMing all the game like Yao was a disgrace of China. Well, apprently they are quite disgraceful.
Well, hopefully Shaq will have something to complain about next year during this same time! If anything, the vote from China will only increase next year. Get used to sitting on the bench in the All Star game, Shaq Daddy!!
Yao won the stateside vote as well, both on-line and on paper. He did very well among Chinese voters, but there weren't nearly enough Chinese on-line ballots for him to win by the margins that he did. Tim
Out of Curiosity, how come this has never been really mentioned on the news very much. I mean, you hear every talkshow host and every sports reporter just assume that Yao Ming won because of the China vote. Ditto for Mark Cuban. But if this is the case, then the China vote had no real bearing. I wish that this could be better publicised.
Tim could you please tell us (if the nba will allow it) what the paper vote totals are/were for shaq v yao? Could you ask (is it within your powers/rights?) nba.com to publish an article to this effect to stop all the negative BS anti-yao propaganda? steve's paper totals would be nice too if possible. You must be very happy with the minnesota (sp?) paper complaining about the "infernal yao ming song" after all his plays Thanks.
My point for posting this topic exactly. PTI gave mention to this by saying, "Yao and Shaq finished very close in the american ballot." WRONG. Yao beat him. Everytime i hear something about the chinese vote getting him in, I yell at the TV it was a democratic American vote he won also.
shown below is slam magazine's online today's links news. Worth reading is this email I got from an anonymous (well, I know who it's from, but you don't) NBA executive with info about the Yao Ming All-Star voting situation... I wanted to clear up some misconceptions about the Yao Ming vote and the balloting in Chinese (Mandarin is the SPOKEN language, Chinese is the written language -- just a technical thing, but it is aggravating when no reporter gets it right). Even before Yao Ming made it to the NBA and prior to the launch of china.nba.com, China was still responsible for 5 percent of nba.com's traffic -- that's right, even when the entire website was in English. Making the ballot available in Chinese just makes it easier on fans, but the incremental effect wasn't all that great. I'm sure it was significant, but I'm willing to wager large sums of money that even if the ballot was in English only, Yao Ming would still be starting this year.
if Yao is helathy, you will never be a starter,Shaq. sorry,because there is over 1.3 billion Chinese.
I don't know if the Shaq story is true, but assuming it is, maybe Shaq can tell his kids that daddy didn't start the All-Star game because daddy's fat lazy ass doesn't like to play the full season and therefore waited until the end of summer (just before training camp) to get toe surgery; so his team started slow slow slow out of the gate.
Shaq-Fool is still Shaq-Fool. The majority of Yao's votes were from Americans (there were several articles about this, see one of' em below). Yao would've had more than just a million if the China really wanted to vote for him. The Big Idiot has no place to complain. Where was his respect to the fans when they voted him to the ASG in the past few years? Stats wise Shaq is better than Yao but I don't care. I would rather see Yao than the Big Buffoon with limited skill. How could you not want to see an irresistible team player like Yao with great personality and skills to match with his well porportioned 7-5 body who can move like a 6-9? Yao will have my all star vote from now on, as long as he's an NBA player. NBA officials say O'Neal lost both the Internet vote and paper balloting, which means he lost the North American vote, as well as the China vote. SGVtribune.com O'Neal shrugs off All-Star snub Lakers Notebook http://www.sgvtribune.com/Stories/0,1413,205~12224~1145633,00.html
Sure I did,' O'Neal said sarcastically. "I doubt that.' "But if you're going to open it up in China, open up in Germany for Dirk (Nowitzki). Open it up everywhere,' he said. "This guy, he's from a small town in China that has 16 million people. So ain't no way you can compete with that. Is he really dumb or what? He called Shanghai a small town??
