Yao ming autobiography in five shorts

Jeff Van Gundy is already concerned. Hours after news leaked of Yao Ming’s retirement from the NBA, Van Gundy predicts Yao’s play on the court might eventually be forgotten, that the original difficult transition Yao made look so easy would be downplayed and that his contribution to the league would be categorized in terms of global dollars and not his influence on the Houston Rockets.

“People are saying he was pretty good,” says Van Gundy, who coached Yao after his rookie season in Houston for four seasons. “No, he was dominant. He could play. You could make the case he didn’t do it for long enough to be considered an all-time great. But this guy was dominant when he played. In his age group, he was the best center,” Van Gundy then pauses and offers the one qualifier as large as Yao that will ultimately follow him into retirement: “When healthy.”

“People forget what kind of pressure he was on when he came over here, not totally comfortable with the language to start off with and being the first pick in the draft,” Van Gundy continues. “People hoped he would fail. Some of the then-Rocket players wanted to trade the pick for Lamar Odom. The guy was under enormous pressure. He handled ev

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By Yao Ming with Ric Bucher
Special to Page 2

From the book "Yao: A Life in Two Worlds" by Yao Ming, published by Miramax Books in September 2004. Copyright 2004 by Yao Ming. All rights reserved.

The dream of playing professional basketball is not a big one with young boys or girls in China. I didn't always dream of being a basketball player. When I was a boy I just wanted to be famous, but it could have been as a politician or a scientist or an army general. I just wanted to do something important.

The chance of a kid in the U.S. growing up to play professionally is very small, but the chance for a kid in China to have a basketball career is even smaller because there are many more kids but only fourteen level-A pro teams. (You can't really call the lower levels professional.) The money in China also is much less than what an NBA player makes, so that's not part of the dream. The top players in China don't make much more than the NBA developmental league (NBDL) players make, an average salary of $30,000. But when a player in China retires, his body hurts the way any professional player's body hurts, and then he has to go out and find a new job. What kind of job can you get when your best skill is bouncing and shooting a ball?

As a kid, Yao knew he would be tall -- b

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