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Yao was taken as the No. 1 pick at the NBA draft by the Houston Rockets, capping months of delicate negotiations to bring the towering center to the United States. Photo by Associated Press.
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Time for APAs to Embrace Yao Ming
By Ethen Lieser
AsianWeek Staff Writer
Jackie Robinson suffered. So did Ichiro Suzuki. Now, it’s Yao Ming’s turn. Ming, the 7-foot-5 center who was the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA draft, will make his debut in the upcoming NBA season, becoming the first high-profile Asian player to enter the game. His critics, however, haven’t been so kind. No matter. It is a repeat of history.
When Robinson donned the Brooklyn Dodgers uniform for the first time in 1947, he was the prime target for hecklers and traditionalists who wanted to keep the game the way it was — white. Black cats were released on the field, metal cleats from base runners bludgeoned his shins, pitchers regularly thought his head was in “concussion alley.”
What separated Robinson, though, was his tenacity and persistence. He kept his mouth shut, ignored the racism, and played the game. He did not waver amidst the threats, and played his heart out — slowly winning fans and praises. So Robinson, in his rookie season, hit .297 with 29 stolen bases and captured the first-ever Rookie of the Year award.
Last season, Suzuki of the Seattle Mariners faced similar obstacles. Major sportswriters from around the country dismissed his talent, saying that he couldn’t handle big league pitching even though he won seven consecutive batting titles for the Orix Blue Wave in Japan. Well, we all know what happened — the Rookie of the Year award, the MVP, the batting title, the Gold Glove award — they all symbolized his greatness as an athlete, but more importantly, he broke down barriers like Robinson.
Already, since his selection in last month’s NBA draft, Ming has been bombarded with negative sportswriters.
Sports Illustrated basketball writer Jack McCallum wrote: “I see his well-proportioned 89 inches and the well-developed lower body. I see his quickness. I see him dribble from end-to-end and release a sweet-looking jumper. I see the intelligence in his eyes and his apparent willingness to succeed … but in the final analysis I don’t see Yao Ming being good enough to justify being the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft.”
Apparently, like other NBA personnel, McCallum is infatuated with Ming’s physical tools and makeup. Yet, it is still difficult for him to accept the fact that Ming was the No. 1 pick. Why? See Robinson and Suzuki.
Sports, in general, do not embrace change. While the landscape of Major League Baseball has changed dramatically each year with the emergence of more Asian players, the NBA still seems to be mired in the default mode of the 1980s and 1990s, the heyday of Michael Jordan.
Last season, the only Asian players in the NBA were Wang Zhizhi of Dallas and Mengke Bateer of Denver. Though their presence was historic, they did little to rattle the NBA as Suzuki and Robinson did for baseball. For the most part, Zhizhi and Bateer were still students of the game, learning more on bench than on the court.
“There were only two Asian players last year,” said David Kim, 32, a software engineer in San Francisco who attends around a dozen Golden State Warriors games a year. “I think Yao Ming will have a hard time adjusting to the style of the NBA. But in the end, he should be a dominant player because of his incredible size.”
If the NBA wants another Robinson-Suzuki revolution, Ming has to succeed. Both Robinson and Suzuki excelled in their first years, prompting the general public and press to finally ease their guards — and to finally accept. If Ming is a bust, so was the entire draft, and the McCallums in the sports industry would say, “See, I told ya!” The Houston Rockets would feel cheated, and future generations of basketball stars from the Far East and Asian Pacific Americans could get shafted as well.
Is this too much pressure for Ming to succeed? “When you are the top pick and the team invests millions of dollars on you, the pressure is already there,” said James Chin, 38, the pick-up basketball coordinator at the Chinese Recreation Center in San Francisco. “But I think he will do fine because all he has to do is concentrate on the game. He has to understand that he’s not a politician or an ambassador.”
Fans never sway their allegiance for a so-so player, no matter what ethnicity. But if Ming can prove that he belongs in the NBA, all that talk could be just silly hearsay.
Reach Ethen Lieser at elieser@asianweek.com. |
