Are you sure that's a picture of Yao taking the ball from Miller and not a picture of Miller taking the ball from Yao?
My favorite Richard Pryor joke: I was at a party and I saw my ex-wife, who had re-married, across the room. I thought I'd go wind her up a bit, so I saundered over and said 'Hey, baby. How's that new husband of yours liking that old used up p***y of yours?' She turned to me and said 'He likes it just fine once he gets past the used up part.' DAMN!
I don't know what Richard Pryor is doing on the team, but I looked real close. . . and he's wearing CONVERSE WEAPONS! in the immortal words of rivers cuomo, "how cool is that?"
This article offers some more serious quotes from Yao. (If it has been posted, I am sorry.) http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/sports/bk/bkn/rox/1547823 By JONATHAN FEIGEN Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle "It was something new, something exciting," Yao said. "In life, you have to experience everything." "Mostly, I am curious," said Yao, 21. "It's always fun to adapt to a new environment. Of course, adapting to a new environment is a challenge to anyone in my shoes. But attitude is very important. The way you look at things, if you look at it from the curiosity angle, it makes it fun and exciting. Then it will be a lot easier. "It took me two years to adapt to going from my club team to the national team. This is a lot different. When I was selected to play for the national team, there was not that much attention focused on me in 1998. Now, everybody is giving me advice; everybody is wanting to talk to me. I'm under the microscope." That does not seem to trouble him. Asked what we will see when the microscope focuses on him, the NBA and Rockets' first draft pick said: "After looking at me in the microscope, they probably see me as 28 meters, instead of 2.23 meters (7-foot-5)." "I have never played in an NBA game," Yao said. "I don't know how good I can be. Maybe I'll be a total bust. When you're comparing us and how we measure up to other players in the United States, it's like us using the metric system and you using the English system. You have a sense of what they are. You can understand some of it. But it's only when you are on the same page that you can really measure." "I'll teach every Rockets player Chinese trash-talking," Yao said. "We had foreign players on our team. They learned to trash-talk before they learned any other Chinese." With a glance at a reporter's scribble, he said: "Some reporters in China, I think their notes look like English. Yours looks like Chinese." Yao does not expect it to be easy, but he doesn't seem to want it to be, anyway. He held up well to the test promised and delivered by the United States centers on Thursday. But their pledge to beat him only offered a reminder that players will relish the chance to punish and humiliate him. He knows of Shaquille O'Neal's promise to deliver "a 'bow to the nose and make him wonder what's coming next." "That's part of the challenge," Yao said. "This is something that I have to overcome. If I can't deal with that, I should not be a professional player in the first place. I have to know how to take that." "There wasn't anything I really wanted materialistically," he said. "For me, if I get paid for one year, I could live on it forever." Then, leaning forward as if not to be heard, he said: "I do pay attention when we drive by the car dealerships. Can I fit in a Mercedes SUV?" "Ever since I was very young, I played against players that were much older than me," Yao said. "I was able to hold my own, but I was never able to excel in those competitions. But when I was 17 or 18 years old, I played in basketball camps here in the United States. Knowing I was competing against the best the United States had to offer in the same age group and being able to see I was able to do well against them, I thought, `Wow, I have the potential to be that good.' That's when I really started to explore that possibility and to challenge myself that way." "I have a special talent," Yao said. "Everybody here contributes something to society. This is the responsibility I'm talking about as a professional player. I serve as a role model for the young kids because I'm in the media attention. Everybody knows me. But also, I have to be true to myself, to know that I did the best that I can. "I used to get stressed out about it. Sometimes the team does not do well, or I didn't do as well as I could have. Or I think I should have acted differently. Now, I am a little easier on myself. "I didn't really enjoy basketball until only very recently, a few years ago when I was 17 or 18 years old. That's when I was not stressed out and found it enjoyable. That's when I realized it was wonderfully intricate and a wonderful profession. It's become an enjoyment, every aspect of the game. Even little things like the squeaking sound of the shoes or the swishing sound of the ball going through the net, the people yelling, the coaches yelling, the teammates trash-talking. I love all of it. "I still have a long way to go, but I'm just so excited to be here."
