What do you guys think of this Mexican fan's comment ?

Does not matter how much Yao has improved it will never be good enough for these naysayers. They just don't want to be proven wrong. it is really sad.

 

Just an additional thought concerning race in sports: Does anyone remember, maybe even only 10 years ago, how few black quarterbacks and coaches there were in the NFL? Now there was no outright racism where people were putting up signs that read 'no blacks allowed' for qb or coach. But there seemed to be that ridiculous, underlying stereotype that for some reason African-Americans would not handle those postions as well as their white counterparts. If you need proof that this existed, the fact that the NFL installed the requirement that a black coach be interviewed when a team goes searching for a new coach should be enough. Fortunately today I don't think it's as much of an issue, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are still some people in management that still share this line of thinking.

In one article about Michael Vick entering the NFL: So what did New York Times football writer Mike Freeman have to say about this? He reached the same conclusion he always reaches when the subject of black NFL quarterbacks comes up: They never get a truly fair shake. "No matter how big a star you become," he informed Vick, "some people will always view you as a black man first and a quarterback second."

I think in this issue, it depends on the critic. There are several reasons critics like to jump on Yao and still underestimate him: his height, the hype he entered the league with, his #1 draft status, his demeanor (which some may/may not tie into race), or indeed his race on it's own. I think some people are expecting a Michael Richards diatribe before they see race as an issue. Race and stereotypes are not that simple.

 

The black quarterback analogy is very interesting.

I don't think it's really about "black players worried about losing their jobs."

The real story is that people want to fit individual players into their racial stereotypes.

Read the criticism of Yao prior to the draft, it's all about how he
1. is slow (translation: orientals are not atheletic like them negros)
2. will fold when NBA players get physical with him (translation: orientals are soft and negros will beat them up).


Also, the recent MSNBC tripe said that Yao Ming could have been "the highest paid dork" in America (translation: orientals are nerds and geeks, not atheletes).

Even when Yao proves them wrong with his ability to compete and excel, they find other excuses based on racial stereotypes to put him down-- like he's not "dominant" (translation: orientals are feminine and submissive, negros are masculine and dominant).

Racial stereotyping, everyone does it.

Same thing happened with every black quarterback... he's just successful not because he's a good QB, but because negros can run fast.

 

i think it's got a bit to do with race, because humans are pack animals by nature. it's always going to be us verses them from any given prospective. this includes race, teams, regions... etc. it's not until a group accepts outsider as part of themselves that feelings start to change (even if not completely). this happened (to a greater extent) when the first black started playing baseball and
football.

i had a friendly argument with a black friend about tmac and kobe. i was for tmac, and he at one point he said... "the only reason why you think tmac is better is cuz of yao", which was true. again pack mentality. conversely, when i was a golden state vs. rockets game the first year yao played, there were blunt racist remarks made by some black people on the seats in the front of me.

why even deny it... as my black teacher once said EVERYONE is racist to some degree even if they don't know it themselves. it's not necessary hate... more of a pack mentality from a given prospective. if aliens attacked earth, it would be us vs them from that prospective and all earthlings would be considered "us" regardless of race.

 

I don't disagree with the arguement, in fact, I think its valid...Yao should have won ROY, especially all the things he had to overcome...This is similar to what Irvin "the ass" said about Romo's athletic ability...Pride...

 

I agree with your teacher... there's even a song about it:


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there's only a handful of blacks who i give a damn whether they think highly and fondly of yao or not. they are: tracy mcgrady, rafer alston, chuck hayes, luther head.......

p.s. billy banks never got the full props he deserved. so he's a black yao ming. i know he can kick chuck norris' ass!

 

lol... funny stuff

 

Good point but its still annoying when people think "Ming" is his family name.

 

George Ming faints.

 

I agree with you on the preconceived stereotypes and how people want to pigeonhole people into them but in the case of Yao there was a lot of validity to the saying that he was slow, wasn't physical and didn't finish well. That's obvious in the video of him prior to entering the draft and also in many games in his first season.

For instance the first time I saw Yao play he had a rebound taken away from him by Fred Hoiberg. That's not the sign of someone who is physical and fast.

Here is a pretty fair article by Ric Bucher after watching Yao's first American workout.

http://espn.go.com/magazine/bucher_20020520.html

Who is Yao Ming?
by Ric Bucher
ESPN The Magazine


Everybody always wants a comparison -- the natural human need to label, stamp and pigeonhole is too strong to resist. "Who’s he like?" they ask when it comes to a budding NBA player. Such comparisons are never fair, nor particularly accurate, but despite all that they are often indelible. Which is why they’re dangerous.

No one has inspired that question, of course, more than 7'5" center Yao Ming, largely because so few people on this side of the Pacific have seen him play. By now he has been cast as someone akin to Nellie doghouse dweller Shawn Bradley and the incredibly shrinking ex-Pacer Rik Smits. The reasons are obvious -- all three are unusually tall (Smits is 7'4", Bradley is 7'6"), all played against weak competition (Smits at Marist, Bradley for one year at BYU) and all are from foreign countries (Smits is Dutch, Bradley is from Castle Dale, Utah).

Having seen Yao play both in his Chicago workout and with the Shanghai Sharks in China, I’d like to offer a few more names -- Kevin Willis, Michael Olowokandi and Patrick Ewing. Let’s throw in Kevin Duckworth, too. Does that confuse the issue? Good. Now let’s look at what Yao has and doesn’t have at the present time before deciding who he is and isn’t:

Offense: By now you know all about his jump shot, which he can take out to NBA three-point range comfortably. That is what has inspired the comparisons to Smits, who was deadly from 18 feet. Even when he posted up, Smits looked to turn and hit a step-back J. Yao has more post moves than that, and is comfortable finishing with either hand, even though he didn’t get to show it against Chris Christoffersen in Chicago.



What he doesn’t do is finish strong, which has inspired the comparisons to Bradley. Several NBA talent scouts were dismayed to see Yao in Chicago finger-rolling off the glass and attempting reverse layups. I saw the same tendency in Shanghai, where he missed from close range going up soft when he could’ve dunked.

Defense: The narrowness of his shoulders and his relatively short arms were noticeable in Shanghai, but they seemed more pronounced against Christoffersen and Cordell Henry, the former Marquette guard who floated a couple of runners high off the glass over Yao in the Chicago workout. Hence the comparison to the gator-armed Willis, who has barely averaged more than half a block per game over his 18-year career.

Yao's lack of reach and awful timing on his leap allowed Christoffersen to face up and shoot and let Cordell, at 5'10", nearly get his shot off from the paint. The timing can be corrected, but the limited wingspan promises to make him a better one-on-one than help defender.

Intangibles: Despite his lackadaisical Chicago workout -- mainly because Chinese officials gave him no time to prepare for it in lieu of celebrating the Sharks’ championship -- Yao has far more competitive fire than either Smits or Bradley. Smits’ tragic flaw was failing to be assertive in playoff series where he posed the Pacers’ biggest mismatch and drawing incredibly boneheaded fouls at crunchtime. Bradley, in turn, simply hasn’t worked very hard to improve his game or physique.



Even in light of the inferior talent in the Chinese Basketball Association, it’s impressive that Yao went 21 for 21 with 21 rebounds and seven blocked shots in the championship game. He has passing and ballhandling instincts that Smits never developed. He reminds me of Duckworth in that he has a tremendously strong trunk but not much upper-body strength.



Yao, however, has had no weight training of any kind and his parents, both ex-Chinese national hoopsters, both asked if he’d have that available to him in the NBA. Yao has done squats on his own, but his routine actually reduced his vertical leap by four inches, which is easily correctable.

It remains to be seen how he responds when Shaq drops a shoulder and dunks on his head, or when Dikembe Mutombo nails his sternum with one of those dagger-sharp elbows, and he’s likely to be a dunkfest target the same way Bradley was. The biggest concern among teams, particularly now that it appears Wang Zhi Zhi’s career could be over, is that the Chinese will have him playing and training with their national team rather than taking part in summer workouts and training camp. He might even miss regular-season games, all of which seriously undermines his and Chinese officials' desire to see him be the No. 1 pick.

That said, Yao is well aware of how much Chinese pride is riding on him and I don’t think he sees caving in as an option. He could look like a mistake at first, as Olowokandi did, and he may ultimately be remembered more for his failure than his success, as Ewing will. But as a skilled big man in a league desperate for some, he is sure to have an impact.

And, if nothing else, he’ll give us one more prototype to use as a comparison.

 

Race plays a part, I'm sure, but there are other factors for why Yao is underrated by so many people. First, he's huge. "Nobody roots for Goliath." Second, his game is plodding and kind of boring, despite being effective. Because so much emphasis is put on style over substance, particularly in the media, people focus on Yao's lack of athleticism or Nate Robinson blocking his shot without looking at the bigger picture of what he provides the team.

 

Actually, the general public loves Yao. This is why he wins the all-star ballots every year, even over Shaq. It's the NBA commentators who diss him for reasons I don't fully understand. The good news is that Yao continues to win the ballots -- which shows how much influence the commentators have. (And that, I bet, annoys the commentators even more!)

 

I agree that Yao was slow (and still is slow-- but that's just a matter of his size) and he wasn't too physical prior to entering into the NBA.

Bucher's points were a fair assessment as far as these too things go.

However, people didn't stop there... they said he would shrink as soon as "NBA players" (translation: black guys) get physical and push him.

That did not happen, Yao has banged in the paint night after night, even with injuries. And yet, the tripe about his "toughness" gets repeated by the Barkleys of the world even this season.

Barkley said Ben Wallace is "a lot tougher than him" before the Bulls game. I have to disagree... Ben is a lot quicker than Yao and is a lot more experienced than Yao, but I can't recall any evidence to suggest Ben is "tougher".

 

all yao needs to do is help t-mac and the rest of the rockets organization win an NBA title..in that way, yao will become the 2nd coming of MJ when it comes to hype.

 

This is OT from this thread but since I can't start a thread right now I'll just bring it up here:

http://www.sportsargumentwiki.com/index.php?title=Yao_Ming

Can someone go and fix this link?

Here's what it says:

 

I don't think there is any question that blacks take pride in their athletic accomplishments. They desire others to view their race as being very talented in this arena. When a non-black, such as Yao Ming, performs at a level higher than that of blacks, then their sense of pride is threatened. This leads to a natural, if not instinctive, defensive reaction, which is racist in nature.

Charles Barkley kissing a donkey on TNT is a nice illustration of how the thinking is flawed and leads to irrational judgments (Yao will never score 20 in a game). Many blacks are highly racist (as are many members of other races), no one can deny that. In our country at least, guilt regarding events of 50+ years ago muzzles any reaction to racism from blacks. They get a pass on it because they were wronged historically. It does not make their racism any less hurtful or impactful however. It just goes unpunished. Opportunists and extortionists such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have made a living by preying on this guilt and extracting bribes (through the form of legislation, handouts, racial quota programs, etc). It's a dirty little secret no one wants to discuss. But at the end of the day, it is very racist, yes.

 

This thread is heading for the D&D at 150 miles/hour.

 

I think people often make the mistake of imputing Charles Barkley's attitude toward Yao as racism. In reality, it's more pride as noted by the Mexican fan and 'extended nepotism'. Put yourself in the shoe of the commentator. You are a 40 year old ex-superstar and your glory days are behind you. However, you still watch basketball on a daily basis. You have couple of players that you like, who are they? Players who reminds you of a younger version of you. Can you really imagine Charles Barkeley going crazy over a player like JJ Redich or Adam Morrison? No, cause CB, himself, was never that kind of a player. CB loved contact, loved to play in the paint and loved to display his athletism with incredible array of dunks. So obviously he would like to akin himself with the likes of Amare or Howard. CB just does it more openly. Similarly but not as obvious, Steve Kerr loves JJ and AM. And Bill Walton loves Yao(Yao being awkward physically, but strong and gifted mentally)

 

Stereotyping and Racisim exist- you would really be lying if you said it did not.
For all that was said about Hakeem because of his accent- he was not really accepted that much as an all time great- initially.

Yao has a tougher road to climb- he never went to college here and it dramatcially changed the way he used to be prior to his entry into an NBA. Add to that we think of China as an adversary ( and damn they are communists!)

It also depends on what you expect of him. While the ring will be the final achievement he will be judged- it is best to let the others do the barking. Barkley may have been the one to Kiss an ASS ( and not sure why he Chose to kiss it on the butt!), there will be quite a few more before we get the ring.

We are lucky to have Tmac, Yao, Battier, Hayes and Luther.Bonzi and Sura's contract if used well- can get us a decent scorer. And if Juwan is put into the mix- may get us the PF. Think of last season- and we should not be that disheartened- so far, so good.