Yao ready to assume place among NBA elite

Yao steps front and center
Formerly hesitant to admit he belonged among the game's elite, Yao Ming is secure in the notion. And he even has a foil in the East in Dwight Howard

By JONATHAN FEIGEN

NEW ORLEANS — There was a time, and not long ago, that Yao Ming did not quite think he belonged, almost as if he had gotten in this most exclusive of clubs on a pass.

Whether because of his well-practiced humility or immediate-but-premature ascension to All-Star starter status, his place in that fraternity never felt quite right.

"I feel nervous, kind of nervous to play with those great players," he said before leaving Houston for his sixth All-Star Game. "I'm just thinking, that is ... the best team you can have in this world, and you're a part of this."

Then Friday, he joined the other All-Stars and discovered he had changed.

"We had the meeting," Yao said of the annual talk with NBA officials to tip off the weekend. "We talked in the meeting room and just relaxed. Not like the playing on the court, head to head; I just relaxed. I felt so good in that room."

It felt right, as if somewhere along the way he had come to be one of the league's undeniable stars, even to himself. But what he could not have known is that while he was comfortable in that meeting, there was another gathering at the other end of the hall.

A bunch of Hall of Famers were together to announce the 2008 list of Hall of Fame
finalists, led by another Rockets center, Hakeem Olajuwon, and his longtime rival, Patrick Ewing. As they looked back, they also saw worthy successors.

"Yao Ming is coming to that level," Hall of Fame center Bill Walton said after the announcement of the finalists. "He's got the game. He is starting this year more than ever to have the impact. He's on the verge of having it be his league.

"The way it's coming, they have a legitimate team right now. All the pieces are in place for Yao Ming to say, 'There is nothing anybody can do to keep me from what I want.' ... I just don't see it as something that might or might not happen. I think it's going to happen."

The next generation
On the weekend that two of the era's top centers moved closer to their long-assumed place in the Hall of Fame, the All-Star Game will have traditional, throw-back centers — the kind thought to be extinct — starting against each other.

Until now, Yao might not have had "all the pieces." With Phoenix's Amare Stoudemire considering himself a forward, Yao was the lone star center of his generation. But with the rapid growth of Orlando's Dwight Howard, he and Yao have each other to push and measure against.

"That will be awesome, to have a rivalry in the West, one you see two times a year, a battle head-to-head," Howard said. "It will be a lot of fun. Hopefully, we can make a little rivalry against each other.

"I think there will always be that with me and Yao. Like everybody says, big men are like dinosaurs. They're becoming extinct. Me and Yao and Andrew Bynum and Amare Stoudemire, Tim Duncan, there's not a lot of us. We'll try to keep the centers going and let them know you still need a good center to win basketball games."

Shaquille O'Neal began a decline before Yao or Howard reached his peak. Marcus Camby, Ben Wallace and Zydrunas Ilgauskas have more limited roles. But Howard, 22, and Yao, 27, fall into the tradition of the centerpiece big men, and despite their age difference, they could have the prime years of their careers overlap.

"There's been a dearth of big men," said USA Basketball director Jerry Colangelo, himself a Hall of Famer for his years as Suns general manager and CEO. "That's the perception and probably the reality. But the fact is there are some big men making a mark now.

"The two potential honorees for the Hall of Fame are two of the greatest who ever played in Olajuwon and Patrick Ewing. It is a reminder that big men are pretty significant in having an opportunity to win a championship. Dwight Howard and Yao Ming are different in size, strengths, styles. But their dominance is significant."

Some special meetings
There was always something special about such matchups, even and maybe especially to those on the court.

"In a game, you will have more energy to play against them," Yao said. "It's a good opponent. That's a fun game.

"I'm aware of that. When you play against Marcus Camby, against Dwight Howard ... you will want to do more and more and more. That's why people like to watch LeBron (James) against Kobe (Bryant), Michael Jordan against Magic (Johnson) 20 years ago, or Shaq against Kobe a couple years ago. That's very interesting. People like to watch it. I like to watch it, too. I feel it."

Yao versus Howard has had only a few preliminary meetings. Their All-Star matchup Sunday will be their first as starters. But there is a sense that they might be heading from the All-Star fraternity meetings on one side of the hall to the even more exclusive gatherings on the other.

"Those guys are great players," Spurs star and certain Hall of Famer Duncan said. "The Ewings and Olajuwons, obviously, but Yao and Dwight, those guys have been unbelievable. They've separated themselves from the rest of the league."

And he said there eventually will be another center tandem in Springfield, Mass.

"Absolutely," Duncan said. "I don't even see a doubt in that. None at all."

Yao would not make such proclamations.

"I appreciate that, but I still have a long way to go," Yao said. "Look at all those Hall of Fame players, at their championships, or MVPs, or Defensive Player of the Years, or a lot of awards. I don't have anything yet."

Disarming humor
But he does have a start, which has made him the center of that kind of talk, status that did not seem to unnerve him.

Yet he did have one concern.

"I'm scared they want me to do the snake again, like the one I had in Houston," Yao said.

And as the laughs surrounded him, he seemed perfectly at ease.


link:http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/bk/bkn/5546821.html