USA Today nice Yao article

I didn't see this posted. Covers some old stuff and some new. Mentions Chance's Yao Ming song! Good read.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/basketball/nba/rockets/2002-10-28-yao-usat-cover_x.htm

Yao demonstrates NBA's reach

By Tom Weir, USA TODAY

HOUSTON — Yao Ming was running more than an hour late, and there was no way the NBA's most anticipated new player could slip unnoticed into the Houston Rockets locker room. Such is the ever-conspicuous way of life for a potential All-Star who not only stands 7-5 and weighs 296 pounds but represents a potentially crowning moment in Commissioner David Stern's quest to make the NBA the world's most global sports league.

But as Houston braced Thursday for its first on-court look at the 22-year-old whom China calls its "Little Giant," there was no talk of sticking Yao with the standard rookie fine for tardiness. His day already had included a limo ride to the George Bush Presidential Library at Texas A&M, where the former president introduced Yao as "the newest Texan from China."

The luncheon was part of a visit from Chinese President Jiang Zemin, who asked the player China calls "a national treasure" to stand. But even the 5-7 Jiang wasn't prepared for what he saw. "His jaw just dropped," says Colin Pine, the interpreter who also has been serving as Yao's chauffeur, housemate and cultural liaison.

Pine, selected from 360 applicants, was just one part of the welcome the Rockets had waiting Oct. 20 at Bush Intercontinental Airport. Several hundred fans were there, and then Yao was taken by limo to the team's Compaq Center for a news conference and introduction before Houston played Orlando in a preseason game.

As Yao walked onto the court, he saw three ornate, swirling dragons, like the ones that dance at Chinese New Year's Day celebrations. Later, the Rockets played a Yao theme song that repeats "Yao Ming, Yao Ming, Yao Ming," to a cadence reminiscent of a military march.

That treatment for Yao, the first player from an international league to be taken first in the NBA draft, was the product of the sensitivity and cultural training Rockets executives received from professors at Texas universities. So were the "Welcome Yao Ming" signs written in English and Chinese.

Yao makes his regular-season debut Wednesday in Indianapolis. As one of the 68 foreign-born players on NBA rosters, he isn't alone in having to adapt to the American lifestyle. Yugoslavia leads the foreign explosion with nine players.

But Yao's sudden immersion has been accompanied by the most scrutiny. His size gives him the obvious potential to become a shot-swatting defensive force — only Dallas center Shawn Bradley is taller, at 7-6 — and Yao has shown a remarkably accurate shooting touch in international competition, including being named to the all-tournament team at last summer's world championships.

All of which makes Yao a perfect vehicle for Stern's drive for global saturation. The NBA is opening an office in Beijing, and a Mandarin language Web site will allow fans in China to participate in 2003 NBA All-Star Game voting.

But doubters wonder if he can generate the same impressive statistics in the NBA, where Yao even admits the play is faster and more physical than what he knew in the Chinese Basketball Association.

Yao also got a late start, practicing with Houston teammates for the first time in the final week of training camp. The Rockets have a four-year, $18.03 million contract with Yao and separate deals with the Chinese government and his Shanghai Sharks team that allow him to play for his homeland in this month's Asian Games, where China was upset for the gold medal by South Korea.

But the Rockets were surprised to learn that, after five years of English lessons and several trips to the USA with the Chinese national team, Yao could converse with teammates far better than expected. While sitting on the bench his first night in Houston, he spoke to teammate Steve Francis about Orlando's double-team strategy.

At his first practice, Yao uttered the obligatory "my bad" after making a mistake. And when head coach Rudy Tomjanovich chastised the Rockets for not communicating defensive assignments to each other, Yao pointed and yelled "I've got him" on the next play.

Yao's only notable communications confusion during his first week in Houston was adjusting to the universal NBA greeting of "What's up?" That phrase sounds a lot like a common Mandarin profanity, which has led to choruses of "Wazzup?" in the Rockets locker room, often led by Yao.

Yao uses Pine to interpret during media interviews and strategy sessions, but when asked if the red wristband he wears for luck was a gift from a girlfriend, Yao doesn't wait for a translation. "Don't ask too much," he says in English.

On his own mission

Pressed to disclose his biggest hardship in the USA, Yao scrunches his face, thinks for several seconds and reluctantly says he doesn't care much for cold sandwiches.

He has yet to dine at a Chinese restaurant in Houston, he says, because "there's really good Chinese food at my house." It's being prepared by his 6-3 mother, Fang Fengdi, who will spend all season living at Yao's house on Houston's West Side. Yao's father, 6-7 Yao Zhiyuan, will return to China soon. Both played for China's national teams but have kept a low profile.

The Rockets are having a 9-foot bed made as well as an oversized bicycle, the standard form of transportation in Shanghai. Yao will keep squeezing into the passenger side of a rented Chrysler Concord until he gets driving lessons from Pine. Those won't start until he masters four pages of basketball terms for Pine's pop quizzes.

Fellow Rockets rookie Bostjan Nachbar, a Slovenian, says much of that English vocabulary is used throughout international basketball. "Cut, curl, rebound — everybody uses those words," Nachbar says. "Every coach in the world uses some English words."

If Yao does miss his homeland, Houston has a small, downtown Chinatown and another spread around the Bellaire District, where many street signs are in English and Chinese. City Councilman Gordon Quan, born in China, says Houston has about 350,000 people of Asian heritage, with Vietnamese leading the count. Houston has two radio stations that broadcast in Chinese and a daily newspaper that prints in Chinese, the Southern Chinese News.

But Yao is more interested in getting Americanized than clinging to links to China. "I'm used to Chinese things, and I love Chinese things, but I also love new experiences."

Yao is the third Chinese player in the NBA, following Wang Zhizhi's 2001 debut for Dallas and Mengke Bateer's with Denver last season. But with his All-Star potential, Yao is acutely aware he'll be a window to China for many Americans.

"I hope I am a good textbook," he says. "It seems to me I am here to do more than play basketball." As for what he hopes to convey about China to Americans: "You have to understand that in China there is a lot of emphasis on collective honor and the honor of the entire country. I'd like Americans to see how Chinese people really work hard in difficult situations. I hope that, through my work in the NBA, they can see that."

Although Tomjanovich was prepared to cope with a jet-lagged player who wouldn't be ready to practice, Yao demonstrated that work ethic throughout his first week, practicing the morning after arriving and playing his first preseason game two days later.

In Wednesday's game at San Antonio, Yao looked lost while drawing three fouls in his first five minutes, later seeing his worst moments strung together on an ESPN segment. But Thursday against Philadelphia, he had 13 points and five rebounds in 24 minutes. He blocked two shots, one a thunderous rejection on 6-9 Art Long that inspired one of several standing ovations from fans.

"SportsCenter" better get on the money and start showing the good plays," Philadelphia head coach Larry Brown said. "He can play."

His baskets tend to be dead-eye efforts that fall through the exact center of the hoop, and the deft movement Yao showed on one spin move led Philadelphia superstar Allen Iverson to anoint him as "a gift from God."

No one would agree more with Iverson's assessment than Rockets owner Leslie Alexander, who has literally and unabashedly promised the world with Yao. "This is the biggest individual sports story in the world. There are 2 billion Asian people, and everybody's watching it. ... In two years he'll be bigger than Michael (Jordan) ever was, worldwide, and bigger than Tiger (Woods). I think he's going to be the No. 1 icon in the world."

Big expectations

Yao, born in Shanghai, was 6-6 at 12. His steady improvement saw him playing for the Sharks junior team at 14, attending a Nike camp in Paris at 16 and being named to the Chinese national team at 18.

His talent surfaced so early he first was scouted by the Rockets at 15, and much of his grooming took place at a sports-oriented school in Shanghai, where he could remain close to his parents.

He also attended the Shanghai Foreign Language Institute and was barely 20 when he played at the 2000 Summer Olympics, averaging 10.5 points and six rebounds. His trips to the United States include 1998 summer league play in San Diego.

Besides the commitment to allow Yao to continue playing for China and the Sharks, contract negotiations were complicated by China's request for part of his salary. The government has been guaranteed $8 million over the duration of this contract and could get more depending on how many years Yao plays in the NBA and if he signs major endorsement deals.

But even with all the attention Yao already has received, wonderment over his size never ceases, even in the NBA's world of giants.

At a team meet-and-greet for corporate sponsors last week, Rockets guard Steve Francis entered the Royal Oaks Country Club muttering, "Even my Hummer is too small for him," after driving Yao to the golf course. When Yao walked in, his head passed under a chandelier with perhaps 2 inches of clearance.

And at San Antonio's new SBC Center, an edgy worker nervously directed Yao away from a low overhang that didn't threaten any of the other Rockets players.

Coming off a season in which they had the NBA's second-lowest home attendance, the Rockets have launched a "Be Part of Something Big" billboard campaign. The first 5,000 fans for Saturday's home opener against Toronto will receive Yao Ming life-size growth charts. And when the Yao Ming bobble-head doll is handed out later this season, it will stand 2 inches taller than those of the other Rockets.

But the Rockets also try to treat Yao as a typical rookie. He must arrive an hour early for practices, and he has been assigned such mundane chores as delivering game shoes to veterans on the road.

"We're going to work him hard in practice, and we're going to work him hard carrying bags," Rockets veteran Glen Rice says. "He can be 8-foot-9, and we're still going to give him the rookie treatment. We can hang a lot of bags on him."

Responding in Mandarin, a smiling Yao says, "A rookie has to do what a rookie has to do."

 

Thanks...I missed that.

So what Mandarin profanity sounds like "wassup"???? That might explain why he was laughing so hard on Sports Sunday last night when saying "wassup".

 

I just realized...Yao Ming has not seen the sun since he arrived in Houston.