OK, it says Yao has 5 physical deficiencies: 1) deaf left ear, 2) narrow shoulders, 3) big behind (that's a bad thing?) 4) short wingspan, 5) short ankle tendons and short toes. The last one, according the the writer, is what limits his vertical. The 20cm part is just the writer's estimate, translated to be something like "Now I seldom see him jump over 20 cm in games." There's that little anecdote at the end that's interesting. It talks about Yao facing Tyson Chandler in a camp in 2001. Chandler was much stronger than him. So Yao kept shooting fadeaways. He made the first 3 and missed the 4th. The coach yelled at him, "Stop shooting those fadeaways." Yao replied, "If Michael Jordan could, why can't I?" And everybody laughed. And he proceeded to shoot another fadeaway, and made it again. Don't know if that's really what happened.
a. Who cares? b. It doesn't take a great leaper to be a great shot blocker. It takes timing. The aforementioned Mark Eaton was always among league leaders in blocks and never jumped.
Fun article. I especially like this quote. "Ever since then (I think he was talking about that Jordan training camp he attended at 18) that I can play in the NBA. It wasn't that somebody told me, but after I played with the Americans, I knew I could make it, and I'll have to do what ever I can to make it. In reality the kids today (maybe talking about the rising CBA stars?) are in much better shape physically than I was at that time. But the most important thing is the physical but mental. Do you want to do it? If you want to do it, do can you be persistent, or would the NBA be to far away? If feel like you can be the best in CBA, would you think that's ok for this lifetime?"
You think Chinese are short because the ones you meet are from the southern provinces. Southern Chinese are genetically shorter and smaller. Split China in half north and south, the average height of the Northern Chinese would be about 6'1 to 6'2, ie. taller than the average American.
I'm about 5'9 and when I went back, I'm either taller or as tall as most people which is nice for a change. But ya, people from north are definitely taller. I think it has something to do with people from the south are descendants of almost purely han while people up north are a mixture of han and other chinese races (i.e. mongolians, manchurians).
I saw Chandler play when he was in high school. He was thin...I mean THIN. I know that Yao wasn't strong either, but I'm pretty sure that he was stronger than Tyson was.
I saw something new tonight - Yao skying for a rebound. He jumped up, and grabbed the ball above the level of the rim. Murphy made a comment about it too. Now everybody knows that Yao is a slow leaper, but it didn't look like it on this play - I wonder if Yao is starting to be able to jump just with his calves, like EG or Rodman did? If so, he wouldn't need a 24-30 inch vertical - a quick 16-20 inches would be dominant. It would really improve his explosiveness as well, and I wouldn't be surprised if our athletic trainers had been working on building these types of muscles.
Nope, 6'1 6'2 is about right. People from NE, Hebei, Inner Mongolia and Shandong are absolutely huge. People from Beijing are shorter because a lot of immigration from the south. Generally it depends on where you go. But they definitely ain't short there.
If having no vertical and tree-trunk legs helps limit his leg, knee, ankle and foot injuries, heck stay on the ground, Yao.
I've been to alot of places in northeast China on business trips, and there is absolutely no way they have a 6'2 average height. 5'11? Perhaps. 6'2? Give me a break. BTW, I was in a small town in Sichuan(a southern province) for two weeks once, and I found only one person who was taller than me(I'm a 6 footer), and it was on a basketball court.
Once I read some statistics data about youth height in China which tould the average of young male is about 178cm overall the China. So the average for Northern Chinese male could be 180+ cm, for young generation, who got better nutrition than their parents.
YEAH Chinese people is much taller than before, especially the kids in high school now. But China has a lot of good centers, but lack of guards. It just seems funny.
I havent been Sichuan so i dont know the average height there though i am from china.But i think a 6'1 or 6'2 (170~175cm) average height is right in north china. I am 175 cm and i had never thought i am tall let alone on the basketball field. i think 178cm is appropriate height in my thought as a guard of my position in field. btw , people higher than 190cm and lower than 165cm is a small part in china at least in north china. when i was in high school ,one of my classmates is 197cm and he was choosen by a basketball team of military then he left school in senior 1 . So i think only a few people in china could be higher than 190cm.
If that isn't a racist comment i dont know what is. If you knew or cared to know anything about chinese culture you would actually know that China has the largest population of people over 7 feet tall. I mean seriously his father was 6'10" or so and his mother around 6'4". You my friend are pulling a Steve Kerr
Actually, the real quote was that China has over 100 7-footers in their basketball development program. No village in the world has over 100 7-footers in it - hell, most cities in the world don't.
Chill man. Its ony a general comment about the the height of Chinese in general. You may argue there're more 7 footers over there, nothing really derogatory. It aint way off when he said Yao didnt need to jump to outrebound most, if not all, centers in China. As a matter of fact this statement is even partially true here.
