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Insider: Yao gives Knicks a lap dance
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Andrew
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5/1/2002  2:54 PM
Yao gives Knicks a lap dance

Don't read anything into this . . . but the Knicks were the first and only NBA team to get a private peek at Yao Ming Tuesday.

Do the Chinese, renowned for their work with ping pong balls, know something we don't about the outcome of the draft lottery on May 19th?

"Yao Ming doesn't belong to any team," Ye Li, Yao's translator, told the New York Times. "He belongs to the world."

Because the Knicks, or at least their media army, think they own the world, does that mean Yao is destined to to be playing on Broadway next year as opposed to the community theater in say, Memphis?

"Yao thinks the NBA picks me, I don't pick them," one interpreter said. But then he added that Yao would feel more comfortable in a major metropolitan area with Chinese influences.

Yao's 25-minute lap dance for the Knicks comes despite the fact that the Knicks have only a 4.4 percent chance of landing the first pick in the draft. Obviously, the Chinese have heard the frozen envelope stories.

"We felt fortunate that we were able to spend time with him," GM Scott Layden told the Times after the workout. "I think Yao Ming has special potential. He really does. He is highly skilled and he's a guy that I think will work and improve. I think he'll be great for the league."

The rest of the league will get a look at Yao today, at 4:15 p.m. ET, when he goes head to head with Oregon big man Chris Christoffersen. We won't get into how Christoffersen landed the gig of straw man, but let's just say he better enjoy the attention while it lasts.

Of course, the Knicks are doing their best to screw up today's workout for the rest of us as well.

Apparently, Knick management lobbied the NBA Tuesday to yank Jeff Van Gundy from directing Yao's workout. Van Gundy, who is technically still under contract with the Knicks, apparently didn't clear it with his former team first.

"I think it's just a matter that we didn't feel it was appropriate at this time," Layden told the N.Y. Daily News. "I think it's something we had heard about through the media and we didn't feel it was appropriate."

If the Knicks are protesting Van Gundy's involvement with a workout, what do you think they're going to do when teams like the Warriors and Nuggets come courting this summer? VG may have to sit out the year just to get the Knicks out of his hair, or what's left of it.

P.J. Carlesimo, who was last seen prying Latrell Sprewell's hands from his neck, will run the workout instead. The league, apparently, decided to see how Yao would react to bad coaching.

No word yet on whether Yao will be forced to wear a Knicks uniform during today's workout.

Just in case the Knicks don't win the lottery, Yao has a back-up plan. He'll workout for the Bulls on Thursday. Apparently, no other private workouts are scheduled.

Saturday, Yao will return to China and begin preparing for the World Championships. He won't be available to join the team that drafts him until after Sept. 8 when the World Championships end.

Of course, GM's aren't going to learn anything in a 25-minute private workout that they don't already know. Yao is an athletic, sweet-shooting 7-foot-5 giant. As long as he doesn't show up today holding hands with Shawn Bradley, nothing he can do in a 25-minute workout will change that.

Still, the Chicago Tribune's Sam Smith wonders if Yao can ever live up to the hype.

"I've never seen Yao play basketball, but I do know there has never been a center who shoots jumpers leading a team to a championship. By all accounts, this is what Yao is . . . We're talking about a guy who, when and if he learns to play NBA-style basketball and puts on weight and stops getting in foul trouble and adjusts to the country, perhaps can be almost as good as Ralph Sampson or Alvan Adams. Or Neal Walk, Kevin Kunnert, Mel Counts or Dave Corzine."

Everyone is grasping for comparisons. So he's no Shawn Bradley. Is he Bill Walton? Kareem Abdul Jabbar? Manute Bol? We're all praying he's not Manute Bol.

The comparison I hear most from GM's is Rik Smits. Smits, the flying 7-foot-4 Dutchman, averaged 14.8 points, 6.1 rebounds and 1.3 blocks per game during his 12-year career.

I don't want to interject reality into this whole circus, but . . . all of this fuss for Rik Smits? Just goes to show you how far a little intrigue and dearth of NBA big men can warp reality.

Finally, what the folks in the NBA really want to know is how much Yao's Chinese delegation will interfere with Yao's right to play in the NBA.

Terry Lyons, NBA vice president for international public relations, told the Denver Post that Yao has been cleared by Chinese officials to join the NBA and will play in the U.S. next season.

"It's fun to talk about it and argue about it," Lyons said. "The reality is it's all just a bunch of speculation at this point. The fun part of it is it has all sort of added to the mystery of the whole thing."

The Times's George Vecsey writes that the Chinese government is still stuck in the past.

"Just about everybody in the world acknowledges by now that athletes tend to jump better without government bureaucrats sticking their hands in the athletes' pockets. But the Chinese leaders still don't get it."

Do we?
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Knixkik
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5/1/2002  3:10 PM
No word yet on whether Yao will be forced to wear a Knicks uniform during today's workout.

This is a great phrase. This and the whole article make it really sound like he could be a Knick.
VG
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5/1/2002  9:10 PM
Have you guys seen the footage at ESPN of his workout? His shooting is really smooth for a big man and I especially like that block on that 7-1 guy. It'll be interesting to see who gets him.
Knixkik
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5/1/2002  9:20 PM
Posted by VG:

Have you guys seen the footage at ESPN of his workout? His shooting is really smooth for a big man and I especially like that block on that 7-1 guy. It'll be interesting to see who gets him.
Hopefully it will be the Knicks, if not through the draft than through a trade.
Insider: Yao gives Knicks a lap dance

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