I was able to go to Day 3 of the Rockets training camp in Austin. This was my first day to attend since I had been out of town the past 1 1/2 days, and Yao Ming isn’t scheduled to arrive until Friday anyway. The Rockets will be in Austin through Sunday, which is one day longer than last year, so that gives me 3 more days to check things out.

Since I was able to go to a couple of days of camp last year, and it’s being held in the same fantastic facility on the University of Texas campus, it was much easier this time around since I was familiar with everything.

Unlike last year under the helm of former coach Jeff Van Gundy, new head coach Rick Adelman doesn’t have a problem with opening up the last 10-15 minutes of practice to the media. When the media was allowed to enter, I was surprised to see former GM Carroll Dawson on the sidelines. I guess it’s hard for him to pull himself away after serving the Rockets for so long. I don’t blame him.

The players were scrimmaging fairly hard, but several players like Tracy McGrady, Chuck Hayes, Dikembe Mutombo, and Bonzi Wells were resting on the sidelines (later the media learned that Bonzi did get some action on the court).

You could tell the players who were on the sidelines had worked hard by how fatigued they looked. Hayes had one of his socks off, and it looked like he was nursing his ankle. GM Daryl Morey went over to him to see how he was feeling. It didn’t appear serious.

Click here for more photos from Thursday’s training camp activities.

I didn’t get to see much since we saw the tail end of the scimmage, except new power forward Luis Scola did draw a charge.

Soon the practice ended with a team huddle on the court, with Adelmen in the center of it for a few minutes. Then all the players spent several minutes on the court stretching, with strength and conditioning coach David Macha in the middle conducting the various stretching routines.

While the players stretched, I had some time to talk to new VP of Basketball Operations Sam Hinkie. Hinkie, who was an assistant to Daryl Morey last year, took over for Dennis Lindsey who accepted a front office job with the Spurs this summer.

Hinkie was a great interview. I asked how the team was getting along without Yao in camp, and he said the offense has really been missing Yao in their drills. He said the players that are present are surprisingly getting up-to-speed fairly quick with the offense, so not having Yao there makes it hard for the offense to get to the next level since the offense is still going to revolve around him. For example, he said it’s difficult right now for the cutters entering the lane to get a feeling for how much room Yao takes up, which is an important adjustment they will need to make.

I asked Hinkie just how much they think Yao will be playing in the high post, and he said it will be frequent when the offense starts a possession, but if a shot attempt hasn’t happened early in the possession, then Yao will slide down in a low-post position to be a higher percentage shooting option. Of course, many wrinkles to this approach will evolve so it won’t become too predictable for opposing teams to defend.

I also asked him about Yao’s monetary fine for being late to camp because of his Special Olympics commitment, and asked if the Rockets would donate that money to the Special Olympics organization. He said he didn’t know where the fine dollars go, and that it may be something the league decides, and that I would have to check with the league to see how they collect that money and where it goes. But he believes most fines the NBA collects go to charity anyway.

After I spoke with Hinkie, I was able to get 3 interviews recorded, and have embedded links to all of them in the little players below.

Here’s the tail-end of a media interview with Adelman I recorded where he talks about his plans for Yao, what has been done this summer with him, the progress of Luther Head, the impact he thinks Bonzi is going to have on the offense, impressions of Mike Harris, and much, much more…

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Our Raymond did an awesome job in the YaoMania! forum capturing all the activities from Yao’s participation in the Special Olympics. Here Yao Ming enters the stadium during the Opening Ceremonies in Shanghai…

Yao was joined in the ceremony by California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose mother-in-law Eunice helped start the Special Olympics movement.

There are just too many photos to show on this page, so I’ll refer you to the following links.

Link 1 – Check out the gradiose stadium and pageantry of the ceremony — I can only imagine what the real Olympic Opening Ceremonies are going to be like next year in Beijing.

Link 2 – Includes an article about the ceremonies, more pics, and quotes from Yao on how important the Special Olympics is to him after he received a high award.

Link 3 – Yao at the airport headed to Texas, and saying goodbye to Jackie Chan in some very funny poses.

With that, Yao is now finished with his Chinese commitments for awhile, and is headed to Austin to join his Rocket teammates for training camp.

Just like last year, there’s a good chance I’ll get to spend some time with Yao later this week when he arrives in Austin for training camp. You never know…plans could change, but I’m confident it will happen.

I’ve got several questions I’m going to ask him, but I thought I’d get your input on the type of questions YOU would like for me to ask. I’ll report here later in the week what he says.

Feel free to post your questions by using the comments link directly below. I’ll approve them throughout the day on Monday, and sporadically through Tuesday and Wednesday. I’m thinking I’ll get to talk to him on Thursday or Friday sometime.

I found an interesting mp3 and video on the Net today from Rockets Media Day.

First, here’s an mp3 of an interview with Bonzi Wells. From the sounds of the interviewer’s shocked response, it looks like Bonzi has ripped himself into shape. Here’s a photo of how he looks…

Impressive. Looks like a totally different guy. I can’t wait to see him play being so much lighter.

Through this interview, I also sensed a much better attitude in his voice compared to how gruff he was last year. I speculate his agent must have given him lots of advice to go out of his way to be nice with the media this year since it can only help in a contract year. We’ll see how long it lasts.

Second, here’s a video from the local Houston news station about Media Day, with special attention paid to Rafer Alston:

Today Dikembe Mutombo signed a one-year contract with the Rockets, which will be his last season in the NBA. After former Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy inexplicably only played Dikembe 40 minutes in that 7-game playoff series against the Jazz last season, Dikembe’s return was in serious doubt.

But thanks to Rocket legend Hakeem Olajuwon, he was able to convince Dikembe to come back after a 3-hour conversation.

We all know how well Dikembe filled in for Yao when Yao hurt his leg and missed 33 games last season.

You can read all the details in this ESPN piece, as well as read about how Rafer Alston may not be as guilty as we first thought.

After two great games in a row where he had scored 30+ points, Yao Ming had a relatively bad game Monday night against Moscow CSKA, making only 5-of-14 shots on his way to 27 points (he made only 17-of-23 free throws). Yao also only grabbed 4 rebounds, committed 4 turnovers, and had 4 personal fouls. Not the kind of “4-4-4” you want that Moses Malone talked about almost 25 years ago. Without Yao having his A-game, the Chinese lost 83-77.

For more photos from the game, click here.

According to our Raymond, immediately after the game against Moscow CSKA, Yao bolted quickly from the venue, even skipping his shower, so he could go back to Shanghai for the rehearsal of the Opening Ceremonies of the Special Olympics. He will then skip the last summer game for the Chinese and head back to Texas on Wednesday for Rockets training camp.

I’m sure no one at training camp will be concerned about Yao’s performance against Moscow. However, if I get the chance, I’ll bring it up to him to see what happened in that game. 😉

Yao dominated for the second game in a row, this time with 32 points in leading China to a 78-75 victory over Italy’s Benetton Treviso. Yao made 11-of-15 field goals and 10-of-11 free throws (the last FT he missed intentionally). He also grabbed 10 bards. So it looks like Yao is getting into good shape with two games in a row now where he scored more than 30 points. He did have 5 turnovers, though.

For photos from the game, click here.

For pre-game warmup pics, go here. For photos from the team practice, you can check ’em out right here.