Yao is a big man with China http://www.nola.com/sports/t-p/index.ssf?/base/sports-16/1106722788146220.xml Wednesday, January 26, 2005 Peter Finney David Stern, the NBA commissioner, was smiling. And why not? The TV cameras had followed the Houston Rockets and Sacramento Kings to China for a couple of preseason games in October. That is, they had followed Yao Ming. There was Stern, at his oozing best, addressing the impact 7-foot-6 Yao has had on the NBA in his home country, calling it, "the most important thing for the development of the NBA in China that has ever occurred." How BIG were those meaningless preseason games? Consider the contrast. In the United States, then in the heat of football season, they rated a couple of lines in the sports section. In China, the two games were available, on radio or TV, in more homes than there are people in the United States. When it comes to counting heads, a billion beats a million every time. Stern looks at Yao and sees the man who unlocked the vast marketing vault of China for professional basketball. Yao will be making the first of two appearances at New Orleans Arena tonight as Byron Scott's 7-33 Hornets search for a fifth straight home victory and the Rockets seek to improve on 23-19. "I've been very impressed with the way Yao has handled himself and the strides he has made as a third-year player," said Scott, whose team will face the Rockets again March 25. "I don't know if anyone has come into this league with more pressure. The pressure was not only enormous, it was unfair. He was being asked to make a tremendous adjustment, in a new country, at the highest level of competition." From the get-go, Scott felt Yao showed "an excellent understanding of the game and some inner toughness." "Right now," he said, "I'd class Yao as a very good center with a huge upside. Going from very good to great will depend on heart and determination." Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy is on record as saying that Yao last season "came in woefully out of shape," a negative that had an obvious impact on playing time for someone his size. Yao averaged 29 minutes as a rookie, 32 minutes last season and at the moment is at 31 minutes, averaging 18 points (which is good) and eight rebounds (which is not). "It's all a question of developing more stamina," Scott said. "Yao impresses me as someone who's very dedicated, who wants to get better. Hard work, in season and during the offseason, is the answer." Scott said he believes no big man has made as immediate an impact since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. "Kareem was 7-2, and he was pretty much an instant smash because of his all-around athleticism, as a shooter, as a rebounder, as a shot-blocker," Scott said. "He also had a real toughness that served him well. I think, in time, you'll see Yao become more and more aggressive on both ends of the court." Inside China, Yao Ming is everywhere. He was his country's choice to promote Shanghai in its advertising campaign for the World Expo of 2010. He cut the ribbon when China opened the world's longest steel-arch span, the Lu Pu Bridge. At the Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, he was the flag-bearer for an event that will have its 2008 home in Beijing. These days, Yao is as ever-present in his country as Chairman Mao Zedong was in his day. On state-run television, you can find the Houston Rocket dressed as a waiter, a chef, a bartender, a bus driver, all part of a tourism campaign with a theme of "One Shanghai, thousands of Yaos." The first thing international passengers see on arriving at Beijing is a picture of a smiling Yao making a pitch for mobile phone service. In neighborhoods frequented by tourists, there are life-size cutouts of Yao outside pubs and nightclubs. During the Rockets' trip to China in October, Yao showed his teammates where he grew up, where he took his first shot ("It was an airball," he admitted), where he washed windows at school to win over his teacher. He talked of walking home each day to have lunch. "What kind of food did your mother make for you?" asked Van Gundy. Whereupon, Yao proved he has a sense of humor. "Chinese food," he said.
