An article in Houston Chronicle hails Chinese super center Yao Ming's improvement, calling him one of NBA's biggest stars.

    

Houston Rockets' Yao Ming, left, poses for his portrait as Tracy McGrady (1) looks on during the team's media day Monday, Oct. 3, 2005, in Houston. (AP Photo)

BEIJING, Oct. 7 -- The possibilities have long since grown into expectations that tower like his face peering down from billboards from Shanghai to the Southwest Freeway.

    The shoulders are broader, the back stronger, but the weight on Yao Ming has increased, too.

    There is a strange irony in that he is measured by, of all things, how much he must grow.

    For Yao, it always has seemed not enough for him to be the player he is but to become the player he can be. Because he is 7-6 with powerful legs and soft hands, he has somehow managed to overshadow himself.

    This is his blessing and his burden. So when he is asked how great he can be, the topic is, like him, enormous.

    Five seconds pass in silence.

    Ten seconds.

    Yao lets out a long, almost pained sigh. He looks away, toward the ceiling, as if trying to avoid distraction to his search for the answer somewhere within him.

    Fifteen seconds. Twenty.

    Finally he gives up.

    "Ahhhh. I don't know," he said, his voice more hushed than in any other answer. "I don't know."

    He never has enjoyed talking of himself and his potential for greatness. The entire topic is too immodest for him and the culture he has often said he must represent.

    "The team goal is always the championship," Yao said. "That's everything. There's nothing else with that.

    "But I really feel tired with thinking of how great can you be. That's a very far goal. You think about 10 years, and it's very tiring. I want to think about today, what can I do today, tomorrow, and that's it."

¡¡¡¡A struggle to stay laid-back

    The burdens would seem massive, but Yao, 25, has become a master at ignoring all that is expected of him. He lives on magazine covers and in television commercials. But even beyond all that, he represents so much to so many in a nation long obsessed with how it is perceived.

    So Yao has trained himself to look past all that.

    "I don't like to feel like somebody forced me to do something, so I like to think like those fans are our friends," Yao said. "It makes you better and them better."

    But it would not matter if Yao preoccupied himself with the demands of others. As often as athletes say they put more pressure on themselves than anyone else can, that is Yao's strength and weakness.

    "Yao is a very harsh critic of himself, and I think that can lead to good things when guys are very, very tough on themselves, and at times, he should worry less, have a shorter memory about mistakes," Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy said.

    "Sometimes being a harsh critic of yourself serves a guy well. Most of those people are perfectionists, which I think Yao is.

    "But if Yao plays 82 games, plays his minutes, he's going to have a heck of a lot more good times than bad."

    Yao can be rough on himself. In a game in Dallas last season, he stopped running the court to literally beat himself up, punching his right hand into his left after a bad play.

    "There were two girls playing in Sacramento this year, Chinese girls (Miao Lijie and Sui Feifei of the WNBA's Monarchs)," Yao said. "I saw the coach in Sacramento (John Whisenant) said their biggest problem with them is if they make a mistake on the court, they want to say 'sorry' to everybody. Maybe it is hard to understand for you guys, but I understand that. The culture is different. I was like that, but I changed a little bit, but not totally changed.

    "We always say we have to learn from mistakes. That's why Chinese people make mistakes and keep thinking, thinking."

    Yao would seem to have more reasons to reflect on his ability than most. But rather than reacting to pressure or expectations, Yao is conscientious because that is his personality, Van Gundy said.

    But Yao knows he is expected to dominate. The Rockets can cite his improvements in transition defense or against the constant pick-and-rolls he sees. He was third in the NBA in field-goal percentage.

    But subtle improvements don't work for giants.

    "Everybody wants a guy to make improvements by leaps and bounds, and that's not usually how it happens in the NBA," Van Gundy said. "Yao's improvement has been incremental. Yao's made solid progress throughout his time in the league.
The numbers say it. When you watch him says it. He's done fine.

    "Where is he at? He's a very fine player."

    Better at the post

    Though he can't quite bear to consider his potential, Yao clearly believes he has considerable room to grow. He once was happy just to be in the NBA. But he has played well enough to know he can do much more.

    "When the Rockets drafted me as the No. 1 pick (in 2002), I didn't know what level I should be, how many points, how many rebounds I should average," Yao said. "That year, I really didn't put a lot of pressure on myself. I thought maybe I could score seven, eight points, maybe get five, six rebounds. That's not really pushing myself too hard. Then I watched people around me, like checking every year what they did. OK, I didn't touch that level yet.

    "From my second year, I tried to push myself hard. I would say I've improved. I know every year is very important for me, because every year I must improve something."

    This season, Yao expects his conditioning to be greater and his post moves versatile and honed. To others, if that does not reach dominance, it will not be enough.

    "There's so much on him," the Rockets' Tracy McGrady said. "He has to not even worry about that, just go out be the best basketball player he can be and help his ballclub win. Then there won't be that pressure. I don't think he's gotten that. But he's young, and he's improving every day."

    As demanding as measuring up to that charge might be, it is more manageable than growing into the pressure of possibility.
"I don't know how much pressure I need," Yao said. "What is the right amount? No one can tell you right now. But I know I need some pressure to push me forward.

    "We will get an answer after maybe 10 years, after I retire."

    Minutes earlier, that answer was too much for him to predict, draining to even consider. But suddenly, like a mine with its treasure buried, all that potential seemed worth exploring.

    
(Source: CRIENGLISH.com/Houston Chronicle by  JONATHAN FEIGEN )