Yao's strong game silences many critics By Vittorio Tafur STAFF WRITER IS IT JUST me, or was everyone enjoying No.1 pick Yao Ming's early-season struggles a little too much? Columnists and broadcasters couldn't get enough of laughing at how much of a stiff Yao was, at how he was soft and n IS IT JUST me, or was everyone enjoying No.1 pick Yao Ming's early-season struggles a little too much? Columnists and broadcasters couldn't get enough of laughing at how much of a stiff Yao was, at how he was soft and not ready for the rigors of the NBA. Never mind that it was still November. Former player and TNT announcer Charles Barkley even vowed to kiss Kenny Smith's behind if and when Yao scored 19 points in a game. As many critics did, Barkley made Yao's slow start about where he was from and the color of his skin. Reverse discrimination runs rampant in the NBA, where white players and now Chinese players are viewed as gimmicks. When No.1 pick Kwame Brown struggled last season, no one was lambasting him on radio or television shows. Same with Michael Olowokandi in 1998. They were big men who needed and were given time to adjust to the league. They were also African American, like most of the players in the NBA, and so they were given the benefit of the doubt their first season. Yao was a 7-foot-5 circus act from the Far East. What, he only played seven minutes against the Warriors? He stinks. The media's act got especially tiresome last week, on TNT: Barkley: "If Yao Ming gets 19 points in a game this year, I am going to kiss Kenny's (butt)." Smith: "He has 12 points and 18 rebounds ... oh wait that was Shawn Bradley." Barkley: "Shawn Bradley is probably better than Yao Ming." Smith: "Shawn Bradley is not bad." Barkley: "Chow Ming ... Yao Ming makes Shawn Bradley look like Bill Russell. He might be a good player someday, but he is not ready. You think he is going to get 19 points ... why don't you go without eating until he gets 19 points? You'll weigh about 12 pounds." Smith: "I'll go on a 'Yao Ming fast.' Until Yao Ming scores 19 points, Charles and myself will not eat. ... He (Yao) has to learn the game a little bit." Barkley: "Learn the game? He has been playing the game all these years. You know what he said when he got over here: 'Whoa! These brothers are different over here.' He's never seen a brother in China. They are big and strong, and they run and jump. 'Whoa! Even white guys can play over here.' The black guys and white guys -- they aren't like those China guys, they're a little bit different over here." Pucker up, Chuck. Yao was 9-for-9 from the field and scored 20 points in only 23 minutes in Houston's win over the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday. Yao got the game-winning basket on a three-point play in which he cut to the basket and dunked the ball. Dunking, you might remember, was a no-no in China because it is viewed as rude and as showing up your opponent. "I was just glad he was aggressive and dunking the ball," teammate Steve Francis said. "In his culture, you don't dunk the ball. But we've been on him from Day 1, 'If you don't dunk the ball, you won't score.'" Yao also scored on jump shots, hook shots and a scoop shot at full speed. "He added to his highlight reel tonight," Lakers forward Rick Fox said of Yao. "He's been much-maligned as a No.1 draft pick. You can't teach 7-6. This is an individual who can clearly play the game -- he's no circus act. He can speak clear English, too, which surprised me. I heard him talking to his teammates." Yao made six baskets in the second quarter and three baskets and a pair of free throws to complete three-point plays in the final period. The 22-year-old rookie's previous high was 10 points. "I guess it's luck," Yao said through an interpreter, when asked about making every shot he took. "For me, it's definitely a breakthrough. I realized to take advantage on the offensive end, I have to be much more aggressive." His teammates were not surprised by Yao's big night. "We knew it," Rockets forward Maurice Taylor said. "There never was a doubt in our minds that he can play. He's been doing those things in practice." The doubters out there will say that Yao's big game came against Stanislav Medvedenko and not Shaquille O'Neal, still out with a toe injury. Fine. That's why all the other centers are getting 20 points in 23 minutes against the Lakers. Oh wait, they're not. Lakers coach Phil Jackson, who lives daily with his tongue in his cheek, said he was glad O'Neal's first game of the season wasn't against Yao and the Rockets. "I feel sorry for the kid," Jackson said before Sunday's game. "(O'Neal) would break him in two. It wouldn't be fair for the kid to go against Shaquille, such a dominant force, such a dynamic amount of energy." Shaq, in turn, did something few have: He gave Yao his props. "Would I break him in two?" O'Neal said. "Congratulations to Mr. Ming, first of all. He's done a lot for his country. Whenever you have a guy that comes in like that, you must take it to him before he takes it to you. He has all the tools. He can shoot. He can dribble. He can play. He's no slouch."
ESPN and the likes is all riding MING'S jockstrap now. They act like they have known all along. No mention of them being sorry for calling him a bust just days before and showing his keyster on the court from that crossover. Pretty pathetic.
Jackson said that before the game. What was he saying after Yao dropped 20 on 9-9 shooting on him. What a putz.
two things.... 1. i don't get the point on the white and chinese getting a bad rap versus black people getting a free ticket. kandi man was rode pretty hard wasn't he? so was kwame...btw kwame hasnt done much since those 1st 2 games. plus i haven't seen a lot of the euro players getting bad raps and they are white. 2. also why cant phil say he would feel sorry for ming...cuz a healthy shaq WOULD destroy ming right now. sorry guys but its the truth. we've already seen how ming has trouble backing ppl down and how he is easily backed down by smaller players. shaq gave ming props but phil is right about how ming would be embarrassed against shaq
Because it is an arrogant and rude thing to say. Have you ever seen Rudy say that Francis would destroy an opposing point guard or something like that? Phil Jackson is a classless prick and I wish he had to coach the Denver Nuggets right now, look at him running his mouth then. He took off in Chicago when he realized he could not ride MJ's jockstrap any longer and he would do the same thing if he did not have Shaq and Kobe in LA.
My sentiments exactly. Where's the almighty Zen master now without his Shaq? Oh yea, 3 and 7, next to last in the division.
Exactly, let him run his mouth all he wants, obviously he is nothing without Shaq and cough* cough* Jordan.
This thread is so one sided... Jackson gave Yao his credit after the game when he said that Yao was the difference in the game. Kenny Smith reversed his stance on Yao after watching clips of him after the draft and bet Barkley that he'd score 19 in the coming games. He said that the pattern of Yao was similar to Garnett and that's why he said it. Barkley and Sportscenter and some stations are still bashing Yao. ""Yao played great tonight," the Suns' Penny Hardaway said. "I haven't seen a lot of him, but all the clips they show on ESPN, all the news stations, it's kinda like they want to embarrass him a little bit, like he can't really play. But tonight, he showed a lot of flashes of greatness.... Just give it time. His play is changing more and more minds.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/oconnor/2002-11-18-oconnor_x.htm 11/18/2002 - Updated 10:46 PM ET Yao makes 'wise' men eat words Add the best coach in the NBA to the best general manager in sports, subtract Shaquille O'Neal from their charmed lives, and you end up with a 3-17 record and a cruel reminder that genius is best served with unimagined strength and skill. Phil Jackson is 3-7 in Los Angeles, Jerry West is 0-10 in Memphis, and Yao Ming is 7-foot-5 in Houston and wondering if America's leading Naismith scholars would be the right men to save the Shanghai Sharks. Long before Jackson said that he felt sorry for Yao and that he feared O'Neal might someday snap him in two, West flipped off the lights on the mystery giant's debutante ball. While other personnel men basked in Yao's glow last summer at his league-nurtured workout in Chicago, West sat sourpussed in the corner of Loyola University's dark, antiquated gym and spoke of a new-age prospect with old-school flaws. This would be the Yao who made Jackson sorry for being sorry Sunday night, shooting 9-for-9 and scoring 20 points in a Rockets victory against the Lakers best captured by Houston's Maurice Taylor, perhaps the first player ever excommunicated by the NBA (for violating its substance-abuse policy) and the NCAA (for his booster bump at Michigan) in the same week. "They didn't have their big guy," Taylor said. "We had ours." The team with the biggest and best players wins the game; that's what it almost always comes down to in sports. It's an easy fact to forget when so much attention and money are shoveled the way of coaches and executives, and when billionaire boys club members such as Mark Cuban cast themselves as the leading men in their own productions. Nowitzki is more valuable than Nietzsche, whether or not Dr. Phil subscribes to this truth. Jackson can summon spirits and burn sage, but no meditative thoughts of sacred white buffalo will help when Samaki Walker and Slava Medvedenko are surrendering to a stampede in the lane. Kobe Bryant scored 46 points and still needed to make a George Gervin finger-roll he missed to beat a so-so Houston team at home, leaving the triangle offense looking like the most predictable square. "Let me tell you," Red Auerbach told me Monday, "you can take the triangle and the Zen and everything else Phil Jackson has and it doesn't matter if he doesn't have the players. What makes you win is Shaq O'Neal and Kobe Bryant, not that other stuff. I'm not saying Jackson's any less of a good coach, but you need more than a guy's eccentricities to win. But sometimes when a coach wins and he says he's doing yoga, other people start doing yoga and it's all a lot of garbage." Not that a legacy of nine championships can be waved away like a cloud of Auerbach cigar smoke — "He's got eight, doesn't he?" the Celtics' patriarch asked before accepting that Jackson had tied his record. "You can't blame Phil for the Lakers' record," Auerbach said. "I don't know if we could've kept it going with Bill Russell out. Look what happened to Orlando when they lost Grant Hill, or the Knicks when they lost Antonio McDyess and Latrell Sprewell. You win and lose with players." West knows better than anyone, since he's the one who cleared salary-cap space for O'Neal and made the trade for Bryant. Funny how things come around. Before the 1996 draft Bryant's agent, Arn Tellem, scared off the Nets' grand wizard, John Calipari, by threatening to send his client to Italy if New Jersey picked him. Bryant was taken by the Hornets, who FedExed him to West, whose Memphis Grizzlies might today lose a full-court scrimmage to Calipari's Memphis Tigers. West did show his usual good drafting taste by selecting Drew Gooden, but the league's living, breathing logo lost his mind when giving Hubie Brown $10 million. Larry Bird swears by ol' Hubie, but the Grizzlies would be better off with Bird's jumper than his recommendation. West would also be better off in L.A., where Jackson will be better off with a healthy O'Neal toe. Meanwhile, if West and Jackson need company for their misery, they should dial Miami information and ask for another championship Laker who looked smarter when the likes of Magic and Kareem had the ball. — Ian O'Connor also writes for The (Westchester County, N.Y.) Journal News.
For me, I dislike the Lakers coach. I am so happy that the Lakers are bottom feeders without Shaq. I don't really care for Shaq but he is the only one I respect on the Lakers, mainly due to his comments about the Dream. He shows class every time he talks about the Dream.
I think the Phil Jackson comments are a little out of context. He said Shaq would do all those things if this was his first game back – as in Shaq would be trying to send a message not only to Yao but also the rest of the league after not playing for a while and his team stinking up the place.
This is called the bandwagon effect. If you think people are jumping on it now, wait until the end of the season. I HATE that ****.
