Word: yao
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...Yao's parents are also helping. Unlike most other rookies, who must simultaneously cope with the rigors of the NBA's nonstop schedule and the novelty of living alone for the first time, Yao, an only child, shares a four-bedroom Houston manse with his mom, dad and Pine. ("I do have my own bedroom," jokes Pine, 29, a former U.S. government document translator.) "The fact that my parents are here," says Yao, "has made my adjustment to American life much easier, although, really, there hasn't been anything that difficult to get adjusted...
Remove the language barrier, and Yao is your standard 22-year-old jock. He loves pizza, ribs, wings and Frappuccinos--in addition to his mother's soup and dumplings. He wears a bracelet from his basketball-playing girlfriend in China. He spends much of his free time sleeping and the rest jumping between gratuitously violent computer games and gratuitously violent action flicks. (A recent night in with Yao: watching The Bourne Identity on DVD while playing Counter-Strike. "He sat in the corner with his computer," says Pine, "and said, 'Just tell me when there's a fight.'") In Shanghai...
...Before Yao arrived in Houston, the Rockets--a young, inconsistent team fighting for a play-off spot--ranked 18th out of 29 teams in road attendance. Now they're seventh. Yao has packed the house in cities with large Chinese-American communities, like Oakland and Seattle, but he's attracting people of all origins everywhere, and they're coming not just to gawk. "There's something about the guy," says Tomjanovich. "He's got a warmness about him, a sense of humor." Yao is already one of the league's better quotes. Asked whether he can speak English better than...
...Yao has even dealt deftly with his first media mini-controversy. Last summer Shaquille O'Neal asked a reporter to "tell Yao Ming, 'Ching-chong-yang-wah-ah-soh.'" In an Asian Week column early last month, the remarks were repeated, and Yao was asked for a response. Tongue in cheek, he said that Chinese was a hard language to learn. (To defuse any controversy, Yao had also sent Shaq a Christmas card, not a typical Chinese gesture.) Before the two played in Houston later in January, Shaq apologized, using the Mandarin dui bu qi. Yao invited Shaq...
Where there is fame, charm and potential, money usually follows. The Rockets have seen single-game ticket sales rise 55% (group sales are up 100%) since Yao arrived. But the real windfall will come in October, when the team auctions off the naming rights to its new arena. The value of naming rights is usually determined by the number of media hits a team generates, and with Yao on board, a Rockets' study shows, the team's profile has doubled. So, presumably, will the value of the naming deal. The NBA, meanwhile, is beaming Yao's games into China...