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Wednesday, December 13, 2000
Yao Ming: This guy can play
By Marc Stein
Special to ESPN.com
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|  | | Alonzo Mourning found out in Sydney that China's Yao Ming is tall. |
Nothing perked up the basketball media Down Under like the phenomenon of Yao Ming. Nothing at all. Not Vince Carter's le facial of Frederic Weis. Not even Lithuania's two near upsets of that not so dreamy Team USA.
Yao Ming was the thing.
He was the king. It started with Sixers coach Larry Brown, walking away from the Dreamers' 119-72 rout of the Chinese with his shirt stained by drool. Swarms of veteran columnists promptly walked away from Brown's speech -- "In four years, he could be one of the best players in the world," Brown gushed -- convinced that China, more than any other foreign country, is the biggest threat to American invincibility on the hardwood.
One cautionary note: Just don't forget the "four years" part. In fact, better make it more than four years.
Yao is undeniably good enough to be selected No. 1 overall, if he gets clearance from the mayor of Shanghai (we're serious) to declare for the June draft. With the state of our college game deteriorating to the point that arena atmosphere is more aesthetically pleasing than the actual product -- apologies to my man Andy Katz -- teams will be lining up to snag a 7-5 center who can move and pass and handle it. For a 20-year-old that tall, Yao's mobility and hands and touch and footwork are all outstanding.
No one that big has been able to do all that at such a young age, and those of you who routinely watch the Dallas Mavericks know that Shawn Bradley will never be able to do it. Yao is definitely a better prospect that Bradley, and you'll remember how high Big Shawn was drafted: No. 2 overall.
But ...
I also watched first-hand last summer, right before Sydney, a game in which Yao Ming and Mavericks draftee Wang Zhizhi could not lead their country to victory over the German national team in a pre-Olympic exhibition. An exhibition in which Dirk Nowitzki watched from the sideline with the flu. Now, there's every chance Yao and Wang simply had a bad day, but let me submit that their worst day should be enough to see off a Dirk-less Germany. And, no, Detlef Schrempf wasn't there, either. Besides the Boy Wunder, Germany has no one remotely capable of making Larry Brown lose it. Steffi Graf probably could have started in that lineup.
So, if Yao is indeed freed for the next draft, and if your team is fortunate enough to land him, just remember that you'll need to be patient. He has to add to some upper-body strength to the roughly zero he has now. Yao has made huge progress in recent seasons, which is what teams look for first in a big man, but his low-post game is not far removed from Bradley-esque at this stage of his development. That's obviously not a compliment. Factor in the inevitable culture shock/language barrier concerns and it will almost certainly take him a couple seasons to get to Rik Smits status, who has replaced Bradley as the player Yao is compared to most.
Marc Stein, who covers the NBA for The Dallas Morning News and was in Sydney, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.
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