Rockets clear big hurdle in push for Chinese center

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Rockets clear big hurdle in push for Chinese center
By JONATHAN FEIGEN
Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle

Having traveled halfway around the globe, the Houston Rockets may have taken one giant step today in their quest to draft Chinese center Yao Ming.

In a development that could be considered a breakthrough and was clearly progress, Shanghai Sharks officials assured the Rockets delegation that they would not stand in the way of Yao's efforts to play in the NBA, Rockets general counsel Michael Goldberg said today from Shanghai.

Sharks general manager Li Yaomin and owner Bai Li pledged, Goldberg said, to offer their recommendation to the China Basketball Association that it recommend Yao to FIBA for inclusion in this month's NBA draft.

With those assurances after two days of social meetings and negotiations, the Rockets cleared the first hurdle to their hopes to draft Yao with the first pick of the NBA Draft June 26 in New York.

"I believe based on our meetings that they don't have any objections," Goldberg said. "In the very short time we've been here, we've developed very good relationships. It went very well. Very well."

The Rockets delegation of Goldberg, general manager Carroll Dawson, coach Rudy Tomjanovich and director of media relations Nelson Luis are scheduled to meet with representatives of the China Basketball Association in Beijing on Wednesday.

To be selected, Yao will need a letter of clearance from FIBA that would announce his availability to the draft. The recommendation of the CBA is considered the remaining hurdle to be cleared for Yao to receive the FIBA clearance.

Yao, 21, averaged 32.4 points, making 72.1 percent of his shots, and averaged 19 rebounds in 34 China Basketball League games last season. He averaged 10.5 points per game on 63.9 percent shooting and six rebounds in the 2000 Olympics.

Goldberg said that Sharks general manager Li Yaomin and owner Bai Li did not attach any "conditions" to their support. There were discussions about the Rockets playing an exhibition game in Shanghai, holding clinics in China, entertaining Chinese coaches in Houston and helping the Sharks with scouting players in the United States that might be willing to play in China.

"They were more discussions than any hard type negotiations," Goldberg said. "They're concerned because they're losing their best player. They wanted to see if there were ways they could improve their team, but there were no conditions placed like trading players. They wanted our help in identifying players that might agree to go there.

"We might go back to China. Coaches might visit with them. There were general discussions about the kinds of things that might be mutually beneficial. (Playing a Rockets exhibition game in Shanghai is) one of the things that could be in the range of possibilities."

NBA commissioner David Stern said the league hoped to reschedule clinics in Shanghai that had been canceled after the Sept. 11 attacks and listed Shanghai as a site for overseas exhibition games the league hopes to resume in 2003.

Stern had seemed somewhat ambivalent about whether Yao would play in the NBA next season or later in his career, referring to the political roadblocks that had kept Arvydas Sabonis out of the NBA during his prime.

"The league has tried to be as constructive as we can," Stern said. "We have people stationed permanently on the ground in China and we have good relationships with the authorities and the CBA and the Shanghai Sharks," Stern said. "But if there's a decision made at the highest levels to not allow a player to come or to restrict him in any way, my reaction was OK, that's happened before, but eventually it will work it's way out."

Told of today's progress, however, Stern described agreements reached in Shanghai as "a great development."

"That's great," Stern said. "We've worked very hard. We have four different Chinese television deals. We cybercast a game in Mandarin. We're very much open to attracting the best talent. We just don't want to be held hostage in any negotiation. We are very, very anxious to be as open as we possibly can and to be as helpful as we possibly can to a point, because there is a certain competitive issue. Other than that, we think it's a great development and a great opportunity."

Goldberg said that television exposure in China helped because it began with the 1995 Finals when the Rockets won the NBA championship.

Goldberg said that meetings with Yao's parents, both former Chinese national team players, also went well. But he said talks about when Yao would be available to play for the Rockets and when he would play for the Chinese national team would be held with the CBA officials and were not the subject of talks in Shanghai.

Goldberg said that Yao's cousin Erick Zhang has continued to represent Yao and that no agent has been hired.

"We had really good meetings and a great time," Goldberg said. "They really treated us well. I thought everything went well. The main thing we did is to first try to develop relationships. That's very important. We toured the city and had our meetings just to understand the concerns they had and to make sure they felt we were people they could trust.

"What's been amazing is how we've been able to develop close relationships in such a short time. But really, truly, the CBA (meeting) is the next step. This was just one step in the process."

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/topstory/1449458

 

Here is another article that makes me feel great about whats going on with the negotiations in China.


A world away, walls come down for Rockets
By JOHN P. LOPEZ
Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle



SHANGHAI, China -- Rudy Tomjanovich went for a walk in the neighborhood surrounding his hotel here and was struck by the deep differences between this culture and that which Westerners know.

Tomjanovich saw walls of high-rise apartment buildings lining virtually every street, each apartment little more than a cubicle the size of most American sedans. He saw women putting out laundry on strings and bamboo sticks stretched between windowsills and trees.

He saw bustling streets, with vendors carrying straw baskets and hawking berries and apples, buses filled to the hang-straps with commuters and thousands of bicyclists swerving dangerously through traffic.

But Tomjanovich saw no walls -- either real or imagined. There are differences, yes, but nothing impossible.

Thus, Tomjanovich drew upon this walk through the streets of Communist China as a reference point for a great escapade into the world of Yao Ming. It will be a different kind of negotiation getting Yao into a Rockets uniform, but nothing is impossible.

In fact, after today things are looking more possible than ever.

Even though no one in the Rockets contingent here would go so far, the big news today in fact appeared to be a feeling on both sides that it no longer is a question of if Yao will become a Rocket, but when.

Feeling comfortable and talking at ease and at length with the general manager of Yao's Shanghai Sharks, various Chinese sports administrators, the Sharks coach and even Yao's parents, the Rockets executives saw two worlds come together.

Yao's past and future definitely can co-exist, with few if any impossible barriers standing in the way.

"Because things are different in another country," Tomjanovich said today, "sometimes people get intimidated. You imagine things."

Some of the things the Rockets either worried about or heard about through news reports and wire stories coming out of China were that the Sharks would make unreasonable demands in return for allowing Yao to join the NBA.

But from the start of this get-acquainted visit to China, the Rockets front-office executives have received nothing but positive messages from the likes of Sharks general manager Li Yaomin and parent company Shanghai Media Group's top brass.

From the moment the Rockets group was met at the airport Sunday night by Li, who spoke with Rockets general counsel Michael Goldberg into the wee hours Monday morning, the mood between the two sides has been united in finding a way to get Yao into a Rockets uniform.

Members of the Rockets negotiating team here, which includes Tomjanovich, Goldberg, general manager Carroll Dawson and director of public relations Nelson Luis, were given a tour of various sights on Monday, including the Shanghai Museum and Yu Yuan Garden.

The group also dined with Li and Sharks head coach Li Qui Ping, with whom Tomjanovich had a long discussion about how Li Qui used Yao and areas of the game where Li Qui believes Yao could improve.

On Tuesday, the president of the Shanghai Media Group, Ye Zhi Kang, and Vice President Hu Jin Jun met with the Rockets, along with Shanghai sports administrator Yao Song Ping and Yao's parents.

Every meeting on the trip thus far has been not just cordial, but productive to the point that the Rockets move on to meetings in Beijing today with Chinese Basketball Association brass -- and perhaps also with Yao -- more confident than ever.

While the Rockets remain cautious publicly, to see the looks on their faces today, the relationships built with Yao's team of representation, is to know one thing more than ever.

"Everything was formal at first," Luis said. "By the end of the third day, (Carroll Dawson) and those guys were joking around like friends."

You knew this already: Yao's name will be called first at the June 26 NBA draft. But this trip has gone a long way toward making sure Yao will answer the call with few unreasonable obstacles to overcome from his former team and government.

"Nothing has ever been awkward -- not ever," Goldberg said. "We didn't know what to expert, but to see them face-to-face, to understand what each other is saying, it was like a partnership were building. The last few days have been like a calming effect for everyone."

During the visit, Shanghai Sharks management did indeed broach the subject of compensation, more specifically a relationship being formed, since their best player will be playing in the United States.

But the Rockets were not asked to send players or money to the Shanghai team. The Sharks executives spoke more about basketball fellowship, which could include things such as Rockets players and/or coaches participating in off-season camps or other players in the Chinese program visiting U.S. camps and clinics.

And perhaps most important, in the meeting with Yao's parents -- specifically, with his mother, Fang Fengdi -- another rumor about Yao's feelings toward the Rockets was dispelled.

Shortly after the Rockets won the lottery, some reports said that Yao was disappointed and not exactly thrilled at the prospect of playing in Houston.

Yao's mother told Tomjanovich that the exact opposite was true. Fang Fengdi said the Rockets in fact long have been one of her son's favorite teams, since he first began following the NBA game during the Rockets championship seasons of 1994 and 1995.

Also, Fengdi, who stands 6-6 while her husband is 6-10, both told Tomjanovich that Yao's favorite big man in the NBA was Hakeem Olajuwon.

"We felt very comfortable with everyone we've talked with very quickly," Tomjanovich said. "It's been amazing."

No one was offering congratulations just yet on sealing the deal. There remain numerous more people to meet and certainly more hurdles to maneuver past, beginning in Beijing today.

But even if the Rockets' movers and shakers are a world away from Houston and everything here looks starkly different from what they know, one thing appears to be the same:

The Shanghainese, his team and his family all want Yao to become a Rocket as much as the Rockets do.