[NY Sun] After Three Years of Doubts, Yao Ming Stands Up Straight

"On the other, there are waste-of-a-draft pick busts like Kwame Brown, Michael Olowokandi, Ralph Sampson, and Joe Barry Carroll."

Not a fair comparison for Ralph, injuries ruined his career.

 

"Of the supporting cast, only guards Rafer Alston and Luther Head and forward Stromile Swift have been consistent contributors."

Stromile has been a consistent contributor?

 

Strange he'd call Rafer, Luther, and Stromile the "consistent" role players. I don't think any of our role players have been consistent on the offensive end.

 

Shall we give Yao another toe surgery?

Saw this joke on ESPN board. Can't resist

 

Here's another article on Yao from ESPN Insider.

"Why has Yao Ming been so dominant lately? The Mavs' Del Harris shares his insight with Chris Sheridan. "

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Del Harris considers Yao Ming his "friend for life," and the Dallas Mavericks' assistant coach has some unique insight into why the Houston Rockets' center has been so dominant over the past month.

It all goes back to the tale of the bloody sock.

Harris was coach of the Chinese National Team in 2004, and he remembered watching Yao take his sneaker off after the first national team practice he coached.

"It was all red down by his toes, and when he took the sock off and you saw the toes --well, let's just say it was one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen," Harris recalled Sunday. "If you were even the slightest bit squeamish, that thing would have made you vomit."

After letting his toe fester for years, Yao finally underwent surgery in December after an infection spread to the bone. Harris said he has seen a huge difference in the way Yao is now able to run the court pain-free, and he said Yao's hiring of a personal trainer has also helped the big man get into the best shape he's ever been in.

"He's down to 6 percent body fat, and you rarely see that in guys that size."

I asked Harris if he saw any kind of a newfound mean streak in Yao's game, and he said a mean streak is something Yao is not capable of. But he said Yao had learned to show his emotions, something common among Americans but frowned upon in China as too individualistic. Yao himself took quite a bit of heat from his countrymen when he demonstrably criticized some of his teammates during the Olympics, the Chinese media questioning whether he had been "Americanized" to a fault and the national federation chastising him for his behavior.

"Being an American, I can see where it's been a good thing for him to be able to release his emotions. To me, it's healthy. We're all humans, I don't care where you're from, and we do better when we're able to be really, honestly passionate about things. When you're emotional and passionate about whatever it is you're doing, that releases everything within you to get yourself through that. If your brain is telling you 'Hold back, hold back,' your body is going to listen to your brain," Harris said.

Harris is considered somewhat of a hero in China for leading the national team to its best finish ever in an international competition when they finished eighth in Athens, making the quarterfinals with a stunning upset of defending world champion Serbia-Montenegro. Harris declined an opportunity to coach China again, and those duties are now being handled by Lithuanian Jonas Kaslauskas, who was Harris' top assistant in 2004.

Harris said he is confident China will make it out of its preliminary round at this summer's World Championship, though he wouldn't go any further with his prediction. With 24 teams competing (twice as many as there were in Athens) as with Europe much more strongly represented, it'll be exceedingly difficult for China to medal -- even though they have the world's best center.

Part of the problem with the Chinese national program, Harris once told me, was the way teenagers are selected for the national program. In a nutshell, their mistake was steering too many tall players into the basketball program at a young age while sending shorter players into other sports. The long-term result has been a system overloaded with big men and short on talented guards. The Chinese also rely too heavily on calisthenics and long practices under a military-type setting without devoting enough attention to agility drills and weight training.

There will, however, be a Chinese guard in the NBA someday soon, and Harris believes it may be 17-year-old Sun Yue, who plays for Beijing Aoshen -- a California-based team in the minor league ABA. Sun, a 6-foot-8 point guard who needs to improve his outside shooting, will likely start for the Chinese national team this summer along with Yi Jianlian, who is expected to be draft eligible this summer despite questions about his true age (in the summer of 2004, there were some saying he was only 16.) Yi, a 7-footer whose parents played in China's national team handball program, will be known as the Chinese Andrei Kirilenko if he lives up to his potential.

I'd suggest to Chad Ford that he move him up from No. 99 in the next Top 100 draft prospects list. In my opinion, seconded Sunday by Harris and Nets president Rod Thorn, he'll be taken before the end of the first round.

 

I don't know about you guys, but Mr. Martin Johnson seems to have a hard time figuring out Yao Ming's surname. He called the big fella "Ming" in much of the first half of the article, but later on he used "Yao" exclusively. I mean come on this is Yao Ming's 4th season, as a sportswriter he should've known better.

As a side note, I also find it curious why a few regular posters on this board would habitually shun Yao Ming's family name in their posts. I am pretty sure while it's not their intention to sound "mean," they don't necessarily mean to be endearing either.

 

All of this Yao praise is getting out of hand to a point where I'm afraid it will make him overrated considering that his team is losing. But so far, it hasn't come to that yet and I hope people will understand that he's not the reason why the Rockets are losing.

 

Very interesting article about the toe. Confirms that Yao has been playing on a bad wheel for years. I guess it helps explain why his 3rd year stats did not make much of a jump.

 

Not to mention that when the Rockets drafted Dream the next year, Ralph voluntarily switched from C (which he had played all his life) to PF. He was just learning to be a very good 4 when the fall in Boston took out his knees.