Word: yao
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...couldn't feel more at home. An All-Star for the second straight year and the league's sixth leading scorer, Nowitzki, 24, like Houston Rockets center Yao Ming and Sacramento Kings forward Peja Stojakovic, belongs to a swelling corps of international players who are winning hearts, minds and dollars, both in the U.S. and abroad. While helping make basketball arguably the world's fastest-growing sport, he and the other sharpshooting globetrotters have managed to captivate hard-to-please hoops fans in the U.S. "Nowitzki's just a freak. He's too big for the small forwards to guard...
Memphis Grizzlies sensation Pau Gasol, a gangly 7-ft. native of Spain who can handle and shoot the ball like a 6-ft. guard, last year became the first European player to win Rookie of the Year. This year Yao is a favorite to become the first Asian to get the honor. Meanwhile, Russian-born 6-ft. 9-in. forward Andrei Kirilenko is helping his elders John Stockton and Karl Malone keep the Utah Jazz in the play-off hunt. "There are going to be a lot of us," says Gasol. "We're proving we can play here...
...year old Yao Ming represents the challenge to these notions, and for the most part the experiment has gone well so far. Sure, there have been some stupid incidents, including the Miami Heat’s distribution of fortune cookies to fans when the Rockets were in town, as well as the endlessly reported Yao-Shaq exchange of words. (When asked his thoughts on Yao, Shaq responded, “Tell Yao Ming, ‘Ching-chong-yang-wah-ah-soh’”). Yao has handled his time in the NBA with a grace and charm...
...Yao Ming also represents a worrisome future with respect to China. One of the conditions by which the Chinese government granted Yao permission to emigrate to the U.S. was that he return a portion of his income to his homeland (up to 25 percent by some reports) and that he train and play with the Chinese national team every off-season—not just in Olympic years. This type of control by the PRC on Yao is harmful. For one thing, it means he is playing year-round, which will take a toll...
...more importantly, governmental attempts to control Yao are signs of future problems that extend beyond the basketball court. I am glad Yao is representing China, but what China is that? The potentially progressive, market-oriented democracy we would like to see? Or is part of Yao’s income going back to a Communist, human rights-oppressing, militaristic China that continues to build nuclear weapons and will likely clear Beijing streets of any “undesirables” in time for the 2008 Olympics...