Newest Yao Ming's interview from China's Sport's weekly

http://www.sportsweekly.com.cn/data/news/new_news/2002/11/29/191018424.html

In this article, Yao Ming again talked about how he fit in the Rockets team. I thought it explained a lot of what he did on the court. Again, here is my rough translation of the related part of the article. The orginal report was wrriten in a very fancy way, flowery. I try my best ...

Fight as Rookie
source Sports Weekly (China) 11-29-2002
Shu Qun

Is Yao Ming afraid of failing? In his words he expressed"I got 0 points 2 rebounds in front of 200 miillion people, what am I afraid of now?"
...

(The firt two graphs talked about how Yao had foul troubles early in the game recently, and was replaced in the middle of 1st quarter)

Yao Ming commented it with a mix of half humbleness and half honesty, "Among 3 centers (of rockets), my start (of every game)is worst. Until now, everybody has already known about me and had new view of me. I too also have new views of others. My opponent and me shouldnt view each other using the old way anymore. We now adjust to each other accordingly. I felt my deffense wasnt that good tonight(the warriors game). However as center, my main task is not to score, but to play the real role of the center position"
Yao Ming felt really exaushted after his first back to back game on the one road. "I am really tired, dog tired" Ming said.
24 hours ago Ming didnt feel so tired, but he was touturing himself becaue of his strong character while sitting in the locker room ( I guess the reporter is talking about Portland's game, the guy's reporting kinda confusing). Yao Ming kept regreting and saying " My hand was cold. Never had such poor free throw shooting. I dont understand it myself, my free throw was never as off as tonigt". Ming is 79.9% free throw shooter in CBA
But Ming wasnt too much concerned about stats. He said " In the beginning, I cared about my stats very much, but now what meaning does it have? Our lost to portland was pretty lame. I think I need to grab at least 7 rebounds if I play 25 minutes ( he only got 2 in the portland game vs sabonis's 6.) Out back court is not lack of shooters, so the real use of center is actaully not for scoring. I think that I scored 30 points a game is not a normal(good) thing, 10 some points for me is normal. The real role of center is to draw double team, to make opponents collapse inside, and thus creating opptunities for the outside(back court), to rebound well and to create fast break opptunites for our guard. The rockets team didnt have a real center for years. Right now the problem is to make inside and outside connect. Francis hasnt performed his best for a while, he was chased after like a mouse on the court. But he is the real leader of this team, not me. I also like KT. He looks skinny, but actually very tough. speaking of cente, I thought not many people know how to do hook shot. But now I realize hook shot in NBA is like free throw, everybody knows how to d it. "

 

Thanks moochie, just trying to share good reads with you guys. I did this last night mid-night after 8 hour driving back from NoCal. Reading it now, I found I made many spelling and grammar mistakes, really embrassing
I also feel for Collin Pine now. It is not easy to translate colloquial Chinese into understandable English. The guy must know a lot about the way of Chinese's thinking.