Rox hit the Links

Lang Whitaker does the Rox. Taken from Slam Mag's Links column:

THE LINKS
by Lang Whitaker

(for Monday, December 30, 2002 -- posted at 11:00 a.m.)

As I write this, I'm in Houston, the H-Town, but I'm getting out of here early Monday morning to go back to where I came from, Atlanta, for a few days and a wedding (sister-in-law's, not mine) and some wedding planning (that's for mine).

But here, Houston, is where I am now and where I've been for the past few days working on a story for SLAM. I like Houston. Haven't done much of anything except go to games and practices and shootarounds, but the weather was great and the convertible Mustang I got upgraded to was even better. Here then are notes and thoughts and hints and allegations from deep in the heart of Texas...

FRIDAY NIGHT: KNICKS AT ROCKETS
Before the game the Rockets had a press conference for Yao Ming to face the traveling press from New York City. On TV, Yao looks big, but in person he's even bigger. No, really. It probably helps that he sits and stands with perfect posture, so he seems to be always extended.

The entire Yao experience is kind of odd. When he talks, for instance, it's Yao and his translator, a little guy named Colin Pine that looks kind of like Harry Potter but speaks Mandarin and English. When a question is asked, it comes in English, then Colin repeats it in Mandarin, then Yao answers in Mandarin, then Colin thinks for a minute, then Colin answers in English. Got that? Now, factor in that Yao has a pretty good sense of humor and doesn't seem big on answering the same questions over and over and over, and it's just a bizarre scene. For instance, here's how the press conference with the Noo Yawk media started:

REPORTER: Yao, how do you handle the pressure?
YAO: I guess I'm used to it.
REPORTER: What's your favorite thing to do in Houston?
YAO: Sleep.
REPORTER: What question are you most asked?
YAO: What's your favorite thing to do in Houston?
REPORTER: Have you thought about the impact you're making around the world?
YAO: I haven't thought about that.

And you can kind of see how it goes from there. Sometimes Yao makes Moses Malone seem well-spoken.

To further gum things up, there are about 10 members of the Asian media in Houston at any given time, and they're incredibly vigilant about getting quotes. They ask and ask and ask and ask questions, and Yao keeps throwing one and two word responses back at 'em. "If I answer one question, they want two. If I answer two, they want three," Yao told me (through Colin) later.

But Yao is fitting in. About an hour before tip-off, Yao was in the locker room, and he tried to toss an empty water bottle into a trash can about fifteen feet away. The shot looked good, but it clanked off the rim at the last minute. "****," announced Yao.

Around the corner, in a hallway at the Compaq Center, I found Steve Francis measuring himself against a Yao Ming growth chart. "I'm growing every day," Steve noted. A few minutes later, Steve hustled into the locker room's bathroom, disappearing for a good ten minutes, before emerging and saying, "Yo, I was dropping bricks, y'all." Thanks, Stevie.

Rockets assistant coach Larry Smith, better known as Mr. Mean during his playing days, rolled up on me and commented on my Harlem Globetrotters Meadowlark Lemon jersey, and then proceeded to name all the former Globetrotters and their numbers. Yeah, it was pretty impressive. Also worth noting is that I found a greenish/yellow scooter with a cracked headlight parked in a hallway. I asked a security guard and was told it belonged to Moochie Norris. Well of course it does.

The Rockets augment their pre-game introductions by having four guys wearing silver face-paint stand on the court and wildly beat drums while fireworks shoot off, like a combination of the Kodo Drummers and Slipknot. I still can't decide if I like it or not. And for the kids, Mo Taylor has a section of seats called "Mo Betta Bunch #2," while Cat Mobley contends with "Cat's Corner." I think Cat's kids had the better seats.

The fans in Houston are wild about Yao, so wild that they booed when Kurt Thomas stole the opening tip from him. To go a little Charley Rosen on you, here's my Yao scouting report:
Great form him jump shot, great release point; occasionally forces the ball and ends up taking horrible shots; painfully slow getting up and down the court -- everyone else just blows right by him; fantastic passer; good transition defense, when he's able to catch up to the plays; still a little clumsy, falling down a lot; gets plenty of calls, more than any other rookie...
OK, that's enough of that. You get the picture. The guy can play.

I sat next to Shan Lei, from the Xinhua News Agency in China. He's in the states for a while covering Yao, who he's been covering since Yao went pro at 17. According to Shan, Yao might be even more popular in China now that he's not there any more. Shan says the next player to come out of China could be a 17-year-old named Yi Jianlin, who is 2.15 meters tall. (I don't know how tall that is, either.) Also worth mentioning: At one point, Shan went to the concession stand and came back with a Yao Ming bobblehead doll. Underneath it was a sticker: MADE IN CHINA.

At halftime of the game, I was live on the Houston radio broadcast to talk about the Rockets. I don't really remember what I said, though, because the Slipknot/Kodo Drummers returned for an encore. Here I was, trying to talk intelligently about the Rockets, while my head was about to explode from the show about five feet away. Fun.

The Knicks ended up running away with the game, mostly because the Rockets couldn't hit a jumper to save their lives. Yao got shut down by Michael Doleac (!), who simply ran right up in his face every time he squared up, forcing him to either pass or take a bad shot. Another Chinese reporter, a girl named Coco (no, really) leaned over and told me that she didn't know a lot about basketball and wondered if I could tell her how Yao was getting stopped by Doleac. I tried to explain it, but it wasn't making any sense to her. Finally I grabbed the Yao bobblehead and used a Bic ballpoint pen to represent Doleac, which worked remarkably well. I think the Bic had a better jumper than Doleac, though.

Afterwards, the Rockets were really down. It was their third straight loss, and no one felt much like talking. Moochie and Stevie left almost before the media could get in into the locker room, and Cat spent about ten minutes in front of his locker just staring off into the distance. When Yao finally emerged from the shower, he wasn't in a talking mood, but he still had to face a roomful of reporters, which led to exchanges like this:
REPORTER: Were they using fouls to stop you?
YAO: They didn't have that many fouls against me, actually. Physicality is just another method of defending me. If it's allowed in the rules, there's nothing I can do about it. I just have to think of another way around it.
REPORTER: Have you thought of another method?
YAO: I'm still thinking.
REPORTER: You used a lot of fakes today, and it didn't seem to work. Were your fakes not good or was their defense especially good?
YAO: They might have known I was going to use a lot of fakes.
Ah, so, grasshopper.

And so it was back to the Embassy Suites with the swans in the lobby to transcribe tape for me. I like Embassy Suites because they have small kitchens in each room, and I stopped and grabbed a Hot Pocket to heat up for dinner. Only problem was that I didn't know there were no plates in the room. Just to keep it real, I used a towel.

SATURDAY: ROCKETS PRACTICE
The Rockets get their practice on at the Westside Tennis Club, where all the NBA guys come play pickup ball in the summer. It's a great court, but nothing special. And next year the Rockets will be moving out and into their new facility, so this may be the, ahem, swan song for Westside.

Practice was supposed to tip off at noon, so I showed up around 1:20, only to be informed by the Rockets cool director of media relations, Nelson Luis, that the players had called a team meeting, and practice actually hadn't even started yet. Come back in two hours. No problem, I said, and put the lid down on the Mustang and drove around for a while before going back to the hotel to watch the Eagles/Giants game, hoping the Eagles could pull one out and get the Falcons into the playoffs. Had to leave at halftime, with the Eagles holding a 7-0 lead.

Back at Westside, practice was winding down with a long-distance shooting drill. As I walked in, a loose ball came rolling right to me. I picked it up and looked out on the court to find Yao waiving frantically at me. I whipped a baseball pass crosscourt to him, and inadvertently knocked Mo Taylor's jumper out of the air. Mo shot me a dirty look.

When practice ended, Rudy T. faced the assembled media. One local reporter asked Rudy if he'd changed his practice plans based on what had happened the night before. Rudy's answer was a classic:
"Practice is always dictated on what's happened. The whole year is always dictated by what's going on. That's the way I live my life. I mean, if your backyard needs weeding, you do weeding. If it needs watering, you water. It's a process."
I think he's been hanging around Yao too much.

Then, after the local reporters moved on, one of the Chinese reporters, a quiet and meek young lady, approached:
REPORTER: It seemed that last night Yao could not score down the streetch.
RUDY: Down the what?
REPORTER: (HESITANTLY) Down the streetch.
RUDY: (LOOKING AT ME, THE ONLY OTHER AMERICAN AROUND) Um....oh! Down the stretch. You said the streetch?
REPORTER: (APOLOGIZING PROFUSELY) Oh! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!
RUDY: No, that's OK. No, you said it right.
I thought that poor girl was going to have a heart attack. It doesn't help that Rudy is tall and cuts an imposing figure, but when he's poking fun at your English...anyway, we all laughed at the end.

As everyone started leaving, Steve Francis and I ended up sitting alone at halfcourt as he iced his knees. A Chinese reporter with a camera approached and asked Steve if he could ask him one question (which meant, of course, that he had about twenty questions). Steve said OK, and the guy squatted down and pointed his camera at Steve and said "How would you evaluate Yao Ming's performance thus far?" Steve said, "He didn't play good last night, straight up! Naw, he's played pretty well so far." I'm not sure the humor translated.

Steve and I talked for a while before Steve noticed the same cameraman cornering Nelson Luis and asking for a quote. As the camera started rolling, Steve whispered, "Look at Nelson. Man, he came in the other day wearing this tight leather jacket. We started calling him The Fonz. It was so funny." Then, suddenly, Steve yelled "The Fonz!" Nelson continued talking into the camera, not turning to look or even smiling. Steve followed moments later with another Fonz-ism, shouting "Eh-oh-eh!" At which point Nelson broke up.

Worth noting: practice began at 12:00, and Steve Francis was the first one there. At 4:15, Steve Francis was the last Rocket to leave. That's leadership.

SUNDAY MORNING: SHOOTAROUND
The Rockets reassembled early after their long practice to get ready for their game tonight against the Hornets. Steve was feeling a little under the weather, so he was sitting out and watching. I was wearing a pair of his shoes, the custom X-Beams with a number 3 sewn on the instep and "FRANCHISE" down the back, which I can rock since he and I both wear size 13. "They feel great, don't they?" Steve asked. Yes, they do, I said.

In a hallway under the seats, a bunch of the ballboys were racing those little Radio Shack remote control cars, which was fun for a while, except that the batteries die after 45 seconds. Then one guy disappeared and returned with a bigger remote control car that actually had hydraulics. Moochie Norris appeared and looked at the car and said, "That's cool, except my car would crush that ****."

After the shootaround, I ended up in the locker room with Yao and Colin and a few ballboys. Nothing going on, just talking, but it was cool to see Yao kind of loosen up and joke about stuff. At one point we were talking about China, and Yao said soccer is more popular than basketball there. I asked if he'd played other sports as a kid, and before Colin could translate it, Yao said, in English, "Table tennis." I asked if he'd played soccer, and he said, "No," and gave me a Mutombo finger wave!

But the most amazing thing was that as we all got up to leave, Yao made a dirty joke, half in Chinese and half in English, about one of the ballboys. I had to promise that I'd never repeat it in order to get Colin to translate it, but let's just say if Mike Piazza had been around he might have been uncomfortable. And Yao totally cracked himself up over it, too, just laughing and laughing about it. But I can't tell you. Of course, if I was Charley Rosen I'd print it and probably get Yao in trouble, but that's not what I'm here for.

(Because I was in Houston, I got to watch the end of the Titans/Texans debacle as the Falcons tried to pull one out against the Browns. I kept track on my laptop, though, and had a celebratory lunch at Burger King once the Falcons clinched a playoff berth.)

SUNDAY NIGHT: HORNETS AT ROCKETS
It's always good when the Hornets are around, because not only is Stephen Silas the coolest assistant coach in the League (and a Linkstigator), but Baron and Tractor Traylor are dope, too, so the SLAM crew always likes the Killer Bees.

Pregame I didn't even see Baron because I got swept up in a locker room argument in the Rockets half. The following question was raised: What's worse, an actor that can't play basketball or a basketball player that can't act? Cuttino Mobley was all over this one, immediately declaring that everyone should be able to be at least pretty good at basketball, since all kids have to take P.E. All kids don't take drama, he added. He also said that a lot of people practice basketball, but not many people sit around and make faces in the mirror. Great point, I thought. Then someone started talking about how some athletes that make movies are good in some and terrible in others. Cat said, "Hell, Julia Roberts does that too. She made Mary Reilly didn't she? And Leonardo made The Beach. I mean, to do that after Titanic? Come on!"

The game had a little bit of tension because both teams were on three game losing skids, and neither team wanted to drop this one. I was sitting courtside for this one, next to none other than ESPN the Magazine's Ric Bucher. It's always fun courtside, because you can actually hear what everyone's talking about during the game. During one Rockets free throw attempt, Hornets coach Paul Silas told Baron that when they got the ball, they should run a play called something like "Five under." Cat Mobley heard this, and he immediately relayed it to the Rockets bench to find out from their scout what the play "Five Up" was. Silas noticed and walked over close to Mobley and said, "Hey, at least get it right. It's Five Under." Mobley smiled and said, "Hey, what's up with you, old man?" And they both smiled.

A few minutes later, Yao caught the ball in the post and tossed up an awkward shot that dropped. Silas immediately called for a walking violation, a call that didn't come. When referee Tony Brothers came closer, instead of screaming at him, Silas slyly said, "I thought walking was going to be a point of emphasis for you guys this year."

"Nobody told us," Brothers joked.

It was a sloppy game, with lots of collisions and crashes all over the court. Yao got in foul trouble early and had to hit the bench to the disappointment of the crowd. Mo Taylor came in shook Tractor Traylor on three straight plays, helping the Rockets build a sizable lead at the half. But the Rockets came out flat as the Texas landscape in the third quarter, totaling just 7 points for the quarter and allowing the Hornets to take the lead. But Mobley and Francis got hot to start the fourth, and the Rockets recaptured the lead.

The Hornets started getting chippy. After a few calls went against them in a row, Silas lost it. Here's an exchange he had with referee Ted Bernhardt, sanitized for your protection:
SILAS: Son of a (gun). We're getting (screwed).
BERNHARDT: OK, Paul.
SILAS: Mobley threw his arm out like this. That was a charge, not a block.
BERNHARDT: That's not how I saw it.
SILAS: (Crap)!
BERNHARDT: (Crap) is right.

Things finally boiled over with just a few minutes to go, when Mo Taylor and Jamaal Magliore got their legs tangled during transition and briefly stood nose to nose, ready to throw down before cooler heads stepped in. The replay showed that it was an innocent mistake, but after the game, Taylor wasn't so sure. I asked him what happened. "He tried to trip me, man, and I was going to beat that ass." Taylor also said he wasn't worried about getting fined if he got into a scrum, because "I get paid enough to pay it."

When I finally caught up with Baron, he was limping out of the shower and sitting gingerly in front of his locker. Baron's back has been ailing him all year, and it doesn't appear to be getting better. A couple of Houston writers surrounded him and started asking him about Yao and Steve and Cat, probably not the first thing he wanted to talk about. I stood behind them and waited, and Baron made eye contact and gave me an exasperated look. Still, he answered everything they asked him.

When he finally came free, I asked him if his back was OK. "Not really," he said, honestly. "I just don't...I don't have my explosiveness." No kidding, I told him. Still, he played like a warrior all night. (Did I just sound like John Thompson there? Sorry.)

And that was that. Now as I'm posting, I'm back in the ATL. Tired. See ya tomorrow...