Being 6ft 5in (1.95m) tall is a mixed blessing in a land of giants.
Among mere mortals, it enables you to tower above most crowds, and draws the usual “what’s the weather like up there” and “do you play basketball” taunts. But when you hang out among true basketballers, 6-5 is really nothing special.
And it’s never less special than when you’re standing in the shadow of 7ft 6in (2.28m), which was exactly where I found myself on the first day of my first tour of China as Tall Blacks media manager back in 2002.
Of course, the man mountain in front of me at the lunch buffet was Chinese hero Yao Ming, who officially retired from the sport last week. At the time, I was just hoping he would leave something for my plate.
Later that day, as we became acquainted with our surroundings in Lushan – an old mountain retreat for the Communist Party – Tall Blacks point guard Mark Dickel wondered if there might be a Yeti living in the nearby forest. Physio Dave Harris mused we could already have one staying in the hotel with us.
Mark and the Kiwis had faced Yao two years earlier at the Sydney Olympics, where he combined with fellow giants Wang Zhizhi and Menke Bateer as the imposing “Great Wall of China”.
But this was my first encounter with him, so the next morning, I hung back after TB practice to catch an early glimpse of Yao in action. It didn’t take long for the locals to realise they were being watching, and I was promptly ushered into the back of a police car and escorted back to the team hotel.
Yao had not yet entered the NBA, but as this tour tipped off, Chinese authorities and the Houston Rockets were haggling over his talents. The Chinese were understandably keen to retain his services for their national team, while the Rockets wanted to make him their marquee player.
Soon after, Houston selected him as top pick of the NBA draft, but one of my vivid memories of this bizarre tour was seeing a frustrated Yao surrounded by little guys in suits, literally trying to drag him in three or four different directions at once. It seemed to sum up his predicament perfectly.
That tug-of-war probably led to his early retirement after a career beset by injury. When healthy, Yao was an eight-time NBA All-Star and absolutely dominant on the world stage.
When he first entered the NBA, few imagined he would be as good as he turned out, perhaps because the international giants before him – players like German Uwe Blab (7ft 1in/21.3m), Sudanese Manute Bol (7ft 7in/2.31m) and Romanian Georghe Muresan (7ft 7in/2.31m) – were little more than circus acts.
NBA legend Charles Barkley promised to kiss the “ass” of former Rockets team-mate Kenny Smith if Yao scored more than 19 points in game during his rookie season. In his eighth outing, Yao had 20 against the Lakers and Barkley duly puckered up for a donkey bought specially for the occasion.
Before their first meeting, Shaquille O’Neal said “Tell Yao Ming, ‘ching chong yang wah ah soh’”, prompting accusations of racism. Yao said he believed Shaq was just joking, then rejected his shot twice in the opening minutes of a 10 points/10 rebounds/six blocks performance.
But in the last six years, he missed about 250 games to a range of mainly stress-related problems to his feet and legs. There were undoubtedly times when both teams could have made allowances for such a rare talent, but the physical toll of satisfying two masters became too much.
In the end, a broken left foot, suffered during the 2009 NBA playoffs caused him to miss the entire 09/10 schedule and let him down again early last season. There was no way back from that.
But Yao’s contribution to the sport didn’t end with his prowess on the court. He really popularized basketball and the NBA in Asia, opening up the world’s biggest market in terms of population.
Much of that had to do with the dignity and poise with which he conducted himself throughout all the frustrations. He helped raise money for a variety of causes in China and personally contributed $US2 million to Sichuan earthquake relief in 2008.
On hearing of his retirement, NBA commissioner David Stern credited Yao with “a wonderful mixture of talent, dedication, humanitarian aspirations and a sense of humour”.
Surely the Tall Blacks’ most remarkable encounter with Yao came at the 2002 world championships in Indianapolis when New Zealand faced China in a must-win pool game. The Asian champions got out to an early 20-point lead, but the Tall Blacks clawed their way to an historic victory that sent them through to the quarterfinals.
Yao produced a perfect shooting night for 27 points, but also featured in two incidents that will long stay with anyone who was there that night. He had to sit early in the fourth quarter after Pero Cameron cleverly faked him into the air for his fourth personal foul – PC was shooting from the arc and made all three free throws in a pivotal play.
But, to be fair, the Chinese colossus had been getting a raw deal from the referees, who were allowing a fired-up Rob Hickey to get away with absolute murder at the defensive end. Poor Yao seemed on the verge of tears.
At one point, he tumbled to the floor right in front of the Kiwi bench, and Rob stood over him, yelling “All night long, mate ... all night long”.
Classic.
Thanks for the memories, Yao.
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