lol....calm down and quit pulling the race card so quickly. have you even looked at the average height of the chinese team? yes there are some tall guys, but most of the guys are much shorter than yao.
Let's dispell this Chinese is short crap once and for all. In the early to mid 20th century, before civil war/communism f*cked up China: 1. The height of the average Londoner was 165 cm (5'5) 2. The average non - native American was even shorter 3. The height of the average Chinese was 170 cm (5'7) Currently, the height of the: 1. Average American white MALE is 5'9 2. Average American black MALE is 5'11 - 6'0 (estimate) 3. Average Chinese MALE is 5'9 + During the last 20 years (ie. without civil war/natural disasters/whatever you wanna blame the on the commies), the average height of the average Chinese youth grew 6.2cm and 4.8 cm respectively for urban boys and girls. 7.5cm and 6.1cm respetively for suburban boys and girls, all the while the height of the average American did not increase by much. http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200206/19/print20020619_98155.html This just goes to prove that Chinese people are not genetically short. It is external factors (eg. malnutrition) that contributed to the shortness of the previous generation. As I said also, the southern Chinese (which you meet far more) is also well known to be genetically shorter than their northern counterparts. So if you say you haven't seen many tall Chinese, it's because you haven't met enough of them.
there have been serious strides in reconstructive surgery since 97. I think we should see what happens to grant hill after his latest surgery. if they can fix him up, then yao could be just an off-season away from the best basketball of his life. even if it doesn't make him better, the rest alone would be good for him. The CHinese govt. keeps screwing up his body from vertical training, lack of upperbody training, while training his lower body creating an unbalanced disproportionate body, and lastly the overworking of him in the offseason. does anybody know the 7'4 russians vertical.
