 |
|
Check out this photo from today’s press conference involving Rockets owner Leslie Alexander and the rest of the team regarding the 2008 Tux & Tennies charity gala.
Click here for more hilarious photos from the press conference.
The good folks over at Sports Illustrated China were gracious enough to send me an English translation of the article that appears in their publication after Yao was awarded the 2007 Sportsman of the Year award in China. Here it is!
Yao Ming, sportsman of the year
Written by Mary Nicole Nazzaro
Fast-forward 25 years.
Yao Ming is 52 years old and his basketball heroics are far behind him. He and wife Ye Li have their own family, maybe even a basketball player. They bask in nice memories of Olympic Games and Toyota Center lights and crowds. Their lives are peaceful and uncluttered. The glitz and glamour of the NBA are a distant memory.
Watch the highlight movie of Yao Ming’s sports career for a moment in your mind, and then ask yourself – what will be the best moment of this film? What will be the moment when I will look back and think,yes, that’s the Yao Ming I remember, the man who single-handedly introduced millions of American basketball fans to the most populous country in the world, the man who was named SI China’s Sportsman of the Year, way, way back in 2007?
Through public voting, Yao was selected as the S.I. China Sportsman of the Year. He beat out several prominent Chinese athletes, including Milwaukee Buck Yi Jianlian and last year’s winner Liu Xiang. Raymond has posted some of the photos from the article in the forum. And for a limited period of time, you can see some of the same photos they are displaying on the S.I. China home page at http://www.sichina.com.
Yao Ming shoots over Detroit’s Rasheed Wallace Wednesday night. Yao scored 21 points, grabbed 13 boards, had 3 assists, and blocked 4 shots. He also hit some big shots in the fourth quarter that were instrumental to a close 80-77 win. Click here for more photos from the game.It was ridiculous how the Rockets escaped with this win. They overcame one of the worst free throw shooting games ever (6-of-22), the Pistons were extremely cold in the first half shooting only 27% from the field, the Rockets blew a 14-point first half lead, a 10-point lead in the 4th quarter, and the Pistons had two chances at the end of the game to win it on two consecutive three-pointers that missed. But the Rockets will take a win anyway they can get it. That’s how desperate they are for W’s.
The game started out with Rick Idle-man not rewarding the players who had given effort in Philadelphia on Monday with a starting assignment. Luther Head, Mike James, Kirk Snyder, Luis Scola and Bonzi Wells were all on the bench to start the game. James and Snyder didn’t play one minute of the game, and neither did Steve Francis.
It was clear from the outset that Idle-man was going to stick with his old ways, hunker down with a few key players, and be more conservative than ever to scratch out a win any way he could. He even had McGrady consistently playing point guard in the fourth quarter. It was like a throwback to the JVG era.
I listened to a podcast of Tracy McGrady‘s interview on Houston’s 790AM sports station on Tuesday. It appeared that McGrady was obligated to make the call to promote his deal with Yahoo! Fantasy sports, not to come on and say he’s pissed about what’s happening with the team, and what he’s going to do about it.
Remember last year how McGrady said “It’s on me,” during last season’s playoff series against the Jazz, and how he has always referred to his teammates as his “supporting cast?”
Well, now that times are tough for the Rockets, it looks like McGrady thinks Yao is The Man and the “franchise player” instead of him. Here’s what he said when asked about his reaction to Yao’s comments that the Rockets were soft.
“My first reaction was….Finally. Yes! Yes, Yao. That’s what he has to do. Vocally. Express yourself. Let us know how you feel. Don’t hold it inside…that’s just showin’ signs of leadership. What he says is true. It’s showing up on the basketball court. I’d rather for him to come out and say it than me. He’s more of a franchise player than I am.”
I can’t believe the interviewer didn’t dig deeper and question him if he really believes Yao is the franchise player. Instead, after that last statement, the interviewer immediately comments (and basically interrupts him before McGrady has a chance to explain), “We (the audience) know better than that,” and bails McGrady out by moving on quickly to a softball question like, “It’s gotta help that the big man in the middle is saying it, right?” Instead, I would have loved to hear him ask, “When did Yao become the franchise player?” or “What’s your role in calling people out?” or just let him continue talking. Sometimes the best interviews are when the interviewer just lets the interviewee talk.
We take a break from our serious discussion of how bad the Rockets are playing to show some photos of Yao and some of his Rocket teammates making a visit to the Ronald McDonald House in Houston
Click here for more photos from the visit.
I’m sure the news cameras were around and we’ll be seeing either an “NBA cares” commercial from the visit, or a future segment in an upcoming FSN-Houston halftime telecast.
For the second straight game, Yao stepped up after a lackluster game by the Rockets. Here’s what he said after the Philly debacle last night.
“When you are soft yourself, everything will feel tough. It’s not because they are so tough. It’s because of how soft we are.
“It’s weird that we changed that quick. I never had that feeling. I feel like they traded me to another team, a new team I’ve never been on before.”
Yao has called out his Chinese national teammates before, but this is really the first time he has done it with his American teammates. I really think that Yao can be a leader, but it takes a disaster like this one to get him there.
Yao Ming misses a dunk against Philadelphia in a game that was a disaster for the Rockets. Yao only made 3-of-11 shots and scored 12 points in 33 minutes before all the starters were pulled after having fallen behind by 20+ points in the second half.I was going to write a long post about all the things the Rockets did wrong as they fell behind by double-digits in Philadelphia Monday night. But then it just kept getting worse and worse, and I couldn’t keep up with documenting their poor play as the Rockets fell behind by 31 points.
When it became garbage time, Rick “Idle-man” (as aptly named by reader “Shawn”) finally put his subs in the game for good because he had no choice since his starters sucked so bad.
And lo and behold, the unit of Luis Scola, Luther Head, Bonzi Wells, Kirk Snyder and Mike James actually made it interesting by pulling to within 12 points with a few minutes left, but they couldn’t get a miracle win. But at least they showed they have some players who can score in a 100-88 loss.
I am not going to cite any statistics for any player because those numbers don’t mean anything in a game like this one. The starters don’t deserve to have their numbers mentioned, and the subs got moist of their points in garbage time when the game was out-of-hand and there was really nothing to lose.
If there is anything to be learned from this game, it’s that Rick Idle-man needs to show some balls and START this same bench unit against Detroit on Wednesday night — at least for that game — and sit Tracy McGrady, Yao, Chuck Hayes, Shane Battier and Steve Francis. That will send a signal that their poor play is not going to cut it. The reserve unit deserves a chance to show what they can do when they start a game. If they implode, so be it. At least Idle-man would have rewarded “giving a damn” with playing time.
Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle has some interesting quotes from Yao in this story about how the Rockets fell apart yesterday in Toronto, a game that I also wrote as being pathetic.
“I feel this is the worst game I ever had in my career,” Yao said. “When we played on the court, no intensity, no patience, no (adherence to the) game plan, don’t know our game, don’t know their game, no trust (of) each other, no defense.
“I hate this game. I hated it. It’s all on us. Us. I’m one of us.”
Yao also commented about his thoughts when he and his teammates were getting ready for the fourth quarter. Yao was yelling out, “Let’s go. Wake up! Let’s go!”
“I knew something was wrong. When we were waiting to step on the court, I was walking to the middle line and saw the people; I was trying to wake everybody up, myself too. Everybody was like they had the same as my ear.”
I think these statements are significant steps for something to change, and I’m not just talking about an attitude adjustment, which rarely works. When your franchise player voices his displeasure about his teammates’ effort (and his own), then you’ve got something there.
The Rockets have finished a quarter of the season, are a measly 11-10, and have lost 9 of their last 14 games. They always say you can tell how good (or bad) a team is after the first 20 games. Well, we’re there, and it sucks.
Yao Ming shoots a hook shot over Toronto’s Kris Humphries. The Rockets played poorly in the second half, with Yao taking only 10 shots (while McGrady shot 21) and scoring 15 points in a humiliating loss, 93-80.After the way the Rockets half-assed their way to a sorry loss against an average Toronto Raptor team Sunday afternoon, someone high-up in the organization needs to rip this team. It most likely won’t be head coach Rick Adelman because he has proven to be too easy going to do that. Maybe owner Leslie Alexander?
In the second half, this veteran Rocket team was outclassed by a bunch of Toronto bench guys, and thoroughly embarrassed as the Raptors scored 59 points in the second half vs. just 35 by the Rocks.
You expect All-Star Chris Bosh to get his points, even if this was his first game back in 5 games because of a groin injury. Bosh scored 21 points (16 points in the second half), grabbed 10 boards, and blocked 4 shots. But when you’ve got bench players like Kris Humphries scoring 16 points, Jason Kapono scoring 10, and Carlos Delfino scoring 12, you have to do some soul-searching on if you’re really the better team or not.