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ASIAN AMERICAN ISSUES
Yao Ming: The Next Asian Superstar?
(Updated
Wednesday, Jan 22, 2025, 06:38:56 AM)
he sweetest moment for Asian men in American sports came on June 26, 2002 at Madison Square Garden. The Houston Rockets had just spent their number one overall draft pick on 7-5 Chinese center Yao Ming over 6-2 Duke guard Jay Williams. The largely black crowd of draft prospects and their contingents booed. They had reason to be displeased. For the past quarter century black athletes had dominated pro basketball and they saw Yao as a subversive force, an alien threat. Even Charles Barkley -- Yao's basketball idol -- sniped at Houston's choice and hinted at bad consequences.
David or Goliath?
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What's wrong with this picture?
In the global sports scene blacks have come to represent all-around athletic prowess. Asian athletes, on the other hand, have been painted as disciplined and skilled but lacking power and size, able to excel only in sports no one cares about. For an Asian to get the top pick in a black-dominated sport was heresy.
To appreciate what Yao represents to Asian American men requires a quick trip down memory lane. And we do mean quick. The lane is short and sparsely populated.
In the beginning there was Sammy Lee, the first Asian American to win Olympic gold. He did it with 10-meter platform diving at the 1948 London games and again in 1952 at the Helsinki games. Not exactly a marquee sport, but inspiring nevertheless at a time when Asian Americans hardly knew what to call themselves.
Then came Michael Chang whose 1989 French Open championship has passed into tennis legend. Cramping and down two sets to Ivan Lendl in the round of 16, the 17-year-old phenom dared to discombobulate the Ice Man with moonballs and an underhanded serve. The ploy worked. The proof that Chang's nerves and speed were real came in the classic 5-set finals victory against Stefan Edberg. But Chang's recent ignomious descent into tennis twilight raises the suspicion that he simply lacks the size and power to stay in the power game.
It wasn't until Hideo Nomo joined the Dodgers in 1995 that an Asian athlete was able to inspire sustained frenzy in one of the big-three sports. Nomo's martian windup and delivery proved so effective that he set Dodgers strikeout records, made the All-Stars and inspired Nomomania.
By 2001 when Ichiro Suzuki joined the Mariners, Asian imports taking Rookie of the Year honors had practically become a Major League tradition. But none had done it with Ichiro's flair or sunglasses. It wasn't enough that he led the game in hitting and basestealing, he seemed determined to make it look easy. Sex appeal had finally come to the image of the Asian male athlete.
But the image still lacked something in many AA minds. Sure, for a leadoff hitter Ichiro hit his share of home runs, but he was known for speed and finesse, not power. Having chafed so long under stereotypes denying them size and strength, AA men longed for a star who could knock those assumptions back into the last millennium.
Eyes turned longingly to football as the obvious arena for the ultimate stereotype smasher -- and saw only Dat Nguyen of the Dallas Cowboys. As a promising linebacker, Nguyen doesn't enjoy the cache of a star offensive back. And at 5-11 and 240 pounds, Nguyen isn't exactly in the 99th percentile in terms of size and power among football players.
Asian American eyes were drawn to basketball by a trio of giants known collectively as "The Great Wall". They were very big for the Chinese national team. First to make his NBA debut was Wang Zhizhi (7-1, 220 pounds) in April 2001. As a center for the Dallas Mavericks he has averaged 5.5 points per 10.6 minutes of playing time per game. A respectable stat for any rookie but disappointing for those who had hoped for an instant Asian star. Then came Mengke Bateer (6-11, 290 pounds) in February of 2002. Despite 15.1 minutes of play per game as a center for the Denver Nuggets, he too disappointed some with an average 5.1 points and 3.6 rebounds.
Enter the Dragon. At a height variously described as 7-5 or 7-6, Yao Ming, 22, is at once the tallest and youngest of the trio. In the past two years his weight shot up from 255 to 295 pound -- and he's still growing. His gifts extend beyond size, however. He moves a foot shorter. Born to a pair of former stars for the Chinese national teams, his court instincts and skills are practically dyed-in-the-wool.
And yet Yao isn't a lock to defy the darker prognostications of his prospects as a Rocket. He was regularly outplayed by Wang Zhizhi when both were playing in China. Even with Yao, Wang and Mengke, the Chinese national team routinely lost to second-tier powers like France and Lithuania. Yao has never gone up against the likes of Shaquille O'Neal. The adjustment to life in the U.S. will be long and difficult. In short, Yao Ming is ideally positioned to become the biggest disappointment in the history of Asians in American sports.
Is Yao Ming the next Asian superstar? Or is he more likely to reinforce the image of Asian men as also-rans in power sports?
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WHAT YOU SAY
[This page is closed to new input. --Ed.]
---Realist
I agree that Basketball Players need time to reach their efficiency peak but I think that as a realist even you should see that yao ming and wang zhi are nothing but china's contribution to sports. they are just names.
china has never been good in sports with the exception of table tennis. a game that requires no muscle, no power, no stamina, just concentration and focus.
yet america defeated china in the tt championship.
china just lost the world cup challenge with 0 wins, straight losses. am i suprised by this? nope!
i have always looked at soccer as a sport dominated by short, quick spaniards/portugeuse and look, brazil won with straight wins.
did this come as a suprise to bora milutonovic who china had to get from serbia? nope.
he knew they werent gonna have a chance against any of the other countries. and sure enough, they didnt.
china could never compete in football unless they were ready to sacrifice lives.
now china decides to take their largest men (out of 1.6 billion) and compete in basketball, a game that is stereotypicaly, and officialy dominated by black men?
quote:
" i am going to best shaq"
---yao ming
is this guy kidding me? he got knocked around by a canadian baller who weighted 220 and he is gonna beat shaq?
kobe, shaq, rodman, jordan, olijawan, little penny could destroy ming on the court. i cant say that the things im saying which are opinions based on future events are the absolute truth but they are accurate based upon what we know.
then look at yao ming, this guy is working for the prc and they are taking most of his earnings away. thats a goddamn shame. i hope if anything, he wises up and defects to america. if he is smart he will quite basketball and live the rest of his life on 5 million dollars as america's tallest chinese man.
if you are really a realist and you wanna keep it real, you should refer to the paragraph above....
"in short, yao ming is ideally positioned to become the biggest disappointment in the history of asians in american sports. "
yao ming is gonna be an " also ran" lol hahahahahahah
jing cha 警察
Monday, August 19, 2002 at 19:59:19 (PDT)
Yao Ming got booed because he sucked, not because he was Chinese. There is a difference.
Run and Gunna
Monday, August 19, 2002 at 17:49:02 (PDT)
Realist,
yea, the projection for Ming might be 6-7 years, but still. a 7-5 guy got handled by a 6-6 guy. Any way you look at that, that's just a mindboggling sight.
Kevin
Monday, August 19, 2002 at 11:40:37 (PDT)
man that 6'6 260lb is pretty big ... its not like he got pushed around by a 200 pounder or something ... ben wallace is only 240 himself... but yeah he will probaly get run over by shaq...still that black guy used wrestling moves on yao ming hahaha...what a cheater...and wang wasnt playing...plus i doubt china gave a damn since it was a exhibition game...yeah they wont allow those wrestling moves those canadians did in the NBA
phil the THRILL
Monday, August 19, 2002 at 11:32:32 (PDT)
what sanitarium, how am i insane...hahahahahha
phil the THRILL
Monday, August 19, 2002 at 11:29:40 (PDT)
China got spanked by Canada. Yao couldn't outmuscle a 220lb guy. WTF was that?
putting bag over my head as a chinese
Monday, August 19, 2002 at 03:01:03 (PDT)
Fu Man, have some patience. Yao Ming is only 21. Basketball players do not peak until they hit 30. Centers usually peak even later than that -- Shaq, for example, is 33 right now. So, expect Yao Ming to take his lumps and losses right now. After all, Michael Jordan lost a lot and did not win his first championship until he was 28/29. Yao Ming still has almost a decade to go before he enters his prime. If you look at the ages of the Chinese National Team Members, half of them are below 25. In 10 years time, Wang ZhiZhi and Yao Ming will be in their prime, as well as the rest of the team -- that is when China will start defeating some major teams.......
Realist
Monday, August 19, 2002 at 00:22:40 (PDT)
Agreed. Yao Ming did play like cardboard. That 6'6" Canadian really took advantage of Ming's lack of physical aggressiveness.
Kevin
Sunday, August 18, 2002 at 11:54:44 (PDT)
yup, china stunk it up against canada. cant believe we got blown away like that. damn. and we had 3 nba players. those point guards stink.
sammy
Sunday, August 18, 2002 at 10:48:01 (PDT)
fu man, you scarcely have anything good to say about Yao ming. You're apparently a pessimistic self-hating Asian as well.
They blamed the inconsistency of Yao's performance on the guards of the Chinese team. At that position it was third world against NBA all-star in Steve Nash who scored 25. The Chinese guards simply were not able to get the ball in to yao. They could scarcely hold onto the ball themselves. And their only bright points came when they were somehow able to pass to the big man inside. And you failed to mention Yao's 5 blocks along with his 3 steals. Aside from this, Wang Zhizhi did not play in the game.
"With his hands on the ball for just the third time in the game's first 7 1/2 minutes, Yao quickly turned on Anderson and threw down a violent slam through a hard foul"
Richard Anderson was the 6'6 260 lbs. backup center for team Canada.
Yao made all six of his shots and all five of his free throws to finish with 17 points. that's definitely impressive no matter how you look at it.
chinatown
Sunday, August 18, 2002 at 10:35:12 (PDT)
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