BTW, all of you crying foul and demanding that David Stern suspend D. Mason are probably the kids who got their lunch money taken in grade school and ran crying to the principal, only to get their asses whooped even more the next day. The only thing that can keep people from dissin' Yao in the future is if Yao hurts them when they do it. Punch them in the face, slam them onto the court, whatever. Screw the one game suspension and all that. If that's what it takes to earn you respect then it's worth it. What isn't worth it is for one minor scrum to partially throw you off your game (and it did a little, fatigue aside). Stephon Marbury elbowed Yao in the stomach, Big Z basically pushed him around and treated him like the family dog he keeps back in Lithuania, Josh Howard threw him down during our series against the Mavs and now some skinny ass gaurd flips him over. The whole league knows that Yao's a 7'6" marshmallow and they're gonna treat him like one until he toughens up.
WTF everybody. People are making it sound like Yao would have crawled into the fetal position if Mason came after him. This is a BIG man, and all he has to do is push back to send the guy flying. Is Yao going to start throwing haymakers? I don't think so. But he's shown that he'll push a guy flat on his ass who gets in his face (see Olympics). Which is a hell of a lot more effective than the air-punching that usually goes down in NBA fights.
Too bad Yao didn't study martial arts while growing up in China. Man, no one would take a swing at him...
I don't think he would fight. But he was definetely not backing down. That is the right attitude: no backing down AND no fight.
This is what I saw. Mason is making his way towards yao aggressively and appears to be trying to confront yao. To me it could either be your way or Howard luckily lessening the damage that was done. He pulled his arm from howard and it went towards yao but I doubt his intentions were to walk up to yao and see if he was okay. He definitely was showing aggressive behavior and should have been ejected in my opinion.
What I saw: 1) Mason was clearly going after Yao, no matter how you defend that 'unintentional punch'. 2) Yao could have injured his wrist and be out for couple of months. 3) Yao's game was affected and we lost. Even the Hornet's coach admit that incident brought their team's spirit up. 4) The referees didn't eject that punk. After the game there's barely any media even mentioning about it. 5) Some of our 'fair' fans still defended Mason. Some said that's not big deal at all. Some said Yao is a wuss. My point is: this ugly stuff will be happening on Rockets again and again coz everybody now see the most effective way to defend Yao is violence. Wait and see people!
If that is the case, sooner or later Yao is going to snap. With his size, someone will get hurt real bad.
I just find it a little bit sad that playing aggressive on both ends is not enough, one has to hurt someone else to earn respect.
It is simple. If he intended to hit someone's head, he should be severely punished, no matter whether the punch landed on the head or not.
all u guys saying yao's a wuss.......... YAO would just destroy 99 percent of the NBA.. he's one of the strongest in the nba, and with his size and weight.. thats a deadly combiation... he was not scared of d. mason... believe me... mason was just tryna front
If you've read all the debate in this thread about whether Mason was 'intended' or not then you would know it's not all that simple. It's dangrous to judge people by intension instead of behavior coz it depends too much on the 'justice' of the judger -- NBA adminstration at this case. Seeing what they did to Van Gundy, I don't feel optimistic of it.
The reason Mason was acting like that is because he got punked. Yao made a lot of guys upset because he wasn't allowning them to dunk on him. That is when one of those ass clowns finally blew up. I'm just happy that Yao had a lot of blocks and even though he ran out of steam played aggresively the whole game. Just look at his stats lots of blocks in the game and he had a lot of shot attempts in the fourth. He is getting tougher and I hope more people get angry enough with him to want to fight. That just shows he is obviously doing something to make them mad. I say we start planning the party for us fans next time we play those pesky hornets.
I watched last night's game and read all the post here. Despite the disagreement on the details, two things are clear: Yao was never the same after the fight; Mason and the Hornets showed more aggresiveness in the fight and thereafter. To my opinion, Mason gets suspended or not is not important. The idiot gets suspended or not won't affect the outcome of this and our future games. I don't think a lot of team will mind sending their own idiot to one game suspension in exchange for taking away Yao's game. And I do not think Yao will ever throw a punch, though an intentionally accidental elbow would be possible. that being said, I do not think Yao is a big wuss as some of you suggested. After all, there are very little current players who throw punches. Knowing how to control yourself is a merit not a problem. So the question is, who in the Rockets would standup for Yao in the future? Who's the Artest in this team? The rockets need one to compensate for the relatively soft lineup. And Yao also need to learn something from it.
