What a beautiful sight: Yao receiving some welcome instruction from Rocket Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon today at Toyota Center. Click here for more photos from the workout.

I just got this sina.com translation from Raymond about Yao’s workout with Hakeem today. I’ll post more articles as they are written by other members of the Houston media over the next day or so.

Toyota Center, deserted and silent for the past several weeks, suddenly became lively today. Hakeem Olajuwon and Yao Ming, the old and new centers, separated by two generations, that were instantly recognizable by every Houston Rockets fan, appeared together on the training court.

Hakeem “The Dream” Olajuwon arrived at Toyota Center around 11:00 am in the morning; he first entered into the changing room to chat with Yao Ming for almost half an hour. Then the two of them went to the training court to start the training session which lasted some 40 minutes. The training was behind closed door and not open to the media, but after the training, both Hakeem and Yao Ming showed up in front of the media to accept interviews.

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I’m delighted to hear the idea of Hakeem Olajuwon teaching Yao a few things is finally going to happen today at Toyota Center. Fans of both players have wanted this to happen for quite some time. The idea came up again when Hakeem paid a visit to the Rockets’ locker room after Houston’s disappointing loss to the Jazz in Game 7.

Is it a coincidence that this is happening while there is a void in the Rockets’ head coaching situation? Perhaps Jeff Van Gundy wasn’t too keen on anyone other than “his guys” (e.g., Patrick Ewing, Tom Thibodeau) teaching Yao anything that didn’t fit what he wanted Yao to do.

Now with JVG out as head coach, perhaps the Rockets’ front office wanted to pull this together before Rick Adelman is named head coach tomorrow and before Yao flies back to China in mid-June. Also, Hakeem spends most of his time in Jordan, so he’s probably headed back there soon.

Give kudos to the Rockets for finally making this workout session happen, despite the naysayers who think the Rockets’ front office is full of a bunch of bunglers. I hope more sessions like these are scheduled in the future.