NYT: Ever Loyal, Yao Risks His Career!

Ever Loyal, Yao Risks His Career

The physical demands would have been daunting for any finely tuned athlete, much less one standing 7 feet 6 inches, with 300-plus pounds stressing his lower extremities, and who had succeeded at becoming, as his former Houston coach, Jeff Van Gundy, said, “something no one that size has ever been, much more than a role player.”

An All-Star, in fact, prominent in the discussion of the sport’s best centers, this season averaging a workhorselike 37.2 minutes a game despite warnings that the N.B.A. grind, combined with Yao’s national team service, was well into the process of breaking him down.

After three healthy seasons, he has, in the last two and a half years, sustained a broken foot, a broken leg and a seriously infected big toe. This week came word of a stress fracture to his left foot, shelving Yao again and, with the Summer Olympics coming in Beijing, forecasting the perfect career-imperiling storm.

“The guy’s going to play in the Olympics, and that’s a foregone conclusion,” Van Gundy said.

He would know, having gone to see Anthony Falsone, the Rockets’ former strength and conditioning coach, now serving as Yao’s (and Van Gundy’s) personal trainer, on Tuesday afternoon. Van Gundy said he was sitting in his car when Yao, of all people, tapped on the window and said, “You heard the news?”

They went inside, spoke for more than an hour, Yao already guaranteeing his doctor’s estimation of a four-month recovery, just enough time to play his way back into shape for the ultimate home games.

For Yao, a trail blazer, an ambassador, the Olympics represent the fulfillment of a career-defining dream, the intensity of which may be incomprehensible to many of us and his N.B.A. peers. In New Orleans at the All-Star Game two weeks ago, when asked about Beijing, here is what Yao, in the midst of his best season and in the middle of a fierce Western Conference playoff chase, had to say:

“I wish the Games would be starting tomorrow, I really wish. I just can’t wait for it. I’ll be very proud.”

In a telephone interview from Houston, where he coached Yao for four years through last season, Van Gundy said: “This is not some fake national pride, some marketing thing. And some people are going to say it’ll be to his detriment, but how can you be bothered by that kind of commitment to his country?”

But where does fidelity become foolishness? When does commitment invite calamity? How much does Yao owe the Rockets, who have underwritten his wealth and have almost $50 million pledged to him beyond this season?

These were always companion questions underlying the conditional coming of Yao, as far back as November 2002, when he was a fouling, fumbling rookie and one look at him told you his body had a reservoir of only so many basketball minutes.

In Denver, before his second N.B.A. game, I asked him how he would survive the N.B.A. and the regimented Chinese national team training, which is not known to grant stars — or him, specifically — first-class accommodations, much less time off to be rich and famous.

“I think the Rockets have a plan,” Yao said diplomatically. To which Rudy Tomjanovich, then his coach, said, “It’s a good question.”

According to Van Gundy, the Chinese have made some recent concessions with regard to preparation for the never-ending international competitions. But with their big show looming, with the popularity of basketball booming, and with the hope, however realistic, of contending for a bronze medal, will undue pressure be put on Yao at a time when caution should rule?

“Let’s say he starts to play in some of the exhibition games leading into the Olympics and there’s some residual pain,” Van Gundy said. “Is there someone with his best interests at heart? They’ve got to be smart and he has to be, too. I told Yao three years ago, learning to say no is an important part of being a great player because you can’t be everything to everyone.”

Against the medical odds, Yao has nonetheless tried, Van Gundy said, “working hard to minimize the risk, the hardest worker I’ve ever been associated with — and I’ve been associated with some great workers.”

At 28, smack in his prime, the most prudent Olympic approach for Yao would seem to be a closely monitored level of limited participation, if that’s even possible. Then the Chinese should let Yao retire from the national team and become the symbolic face of their basketball federation.

Why try to make him risk the rest of his career and his long-term health? Or force him out of character one day soon to unilaterally declare himself done when his mission — to help China announce itself in the early 21st century — has already been achieved?

“I can tell you he’s never asked to be treated special, to be singled out,” Van Gundy said. Now is the time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/01/s...all&adxnnlx=1204387379-YOCj1BfFFY4FMwzNGHtcSg

really good read. JVG is right. he should just play a few games leading up to the olympics and then play the olympics. i believe yao should play in the olympics b/c it's on an international stage and he's on the host country. i just disagree with how many games/training/competition he should play for china when it's not really iimportant. they could use those to develop their younger talent, which china has and yi. but yao is torn. but it's hard to take his heart and make it focus completely on the rockets.

i just hope there can be a good plan/solution after the olympics b/c yao's career is really at risk. i don't want him to have a short career b/c if he takes care of his body, he has another 6 yrs of great play left.

 

he will be 100% to START the season, which i have no doubt. he has made great recoveries from the previous injuries.

it's how healthy and prone to injuries he will be DURING the season.

that is the biggest question. we need both tmac and yao to play at least 70-75 games during the reg. season and be healthy for the playoffs. we finally have a championship contender (and i mean TRULY LEGIT chances) here and we do not want to waste these opportunities due to injuries at inopportune times.