Raymond has posted tons of photos in the forum from the All-Star game. Below Yao Ming shares a laugh with Dirk Nowitzki on the bus headed to the arena.

More photos in the forum include:
– Yao Ming and Sun Yue at NBA China Night (Saturday)
– Yao Ming at the arena (pre-game, in the game, and post-game)

Raymond has posted in the forum photos of Yao at the Saturday practice for the West team.

Below the photos is a link to a video interview that Yao conducted with Craig Sager on Saturday.

Sorry for the brevity, but I’m writing this blog on my iPhone as I make my way to Phoenix for some All-Star activities on Sunday. More to come on Sunday.

Raymond has posted lots of photos in the forum of Yao and other NBA players, including Luis Scola and Aaron Brooks, in Phoenix for All-Star weekend events.

Click here for more photos of Yao and other players in Phoenix.

Here Yao Ming works with one of many university exchange students from Sichuan at a Phoenix school in some cleanup work as part of the NBA Cares program. Raymond has written a nice write-up of how this student was selected to come to Phoenix.

I’m trying out a new polling platform to see if it’s something the Yao Mania community likes. Take the survey below and if you have any negative feedback about how it works, let me know in the comments at the bottom of the post (not at the bottom of the widget).

The Rockets at home beat 94-82 the worst team in the league, the 11-42 Sacramento Kings, which isn’t always a certainty these days, even against a team that has now lost 14 of its last 15 games. We all pretty much knew a victory was going to happen, especially when we learned before the game that Tracy McGrady would not be playing.

Yao Ming throws one down against Sacramento on the way to 24 points and 18 rebounds in a victory. Click here for more photos from the game.

The worst case scenario would have been for McGrady to pull out of mothballs a decent game, then lots of people feeling good headed into the All-Star break and the February 19th trading deadline looming that the Rockets might be able to make this thing work with him in the lineup. That could make them hesitant to do a trade with everyone hoping that maybe he can finally get it going after the All-Star break, and that trading him would be premature.

Lo and behold, though, that didn’t happen! More drama unfolded Wednesday when a Houston television station broke a story that McGrady may be out for the season after an MRI was done on his left knee.

But then later the Rockets announced that McGrady’s knee is still the same, which means according to previous reports over the past few months, it’s okay for him to play on it and that it would only get better if he used it.

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The Chronicle reports that the league is cracking down on NBA player charities benefiting financially from team events. Supposedly events like this can be considered a little bit like financial compensation, making it more difficult for other teams to woo players away from the teams when they become free agents.

It’s a shame that earthquake victims in China won’t be able to benefit from the Rockets’ Tux & Tennies gala on February 18th because of questionable rules like this that keep the big picture out of perspective. But at least hurricane victims on the Gulf Coast still will benefit.

On Tuesday, one day after the Rockets’ embarrassing loss to Milwaukee, Yao Ming was obviously still upset about it as seen in this photo that Raymond posted in the forum.

Meanwhile, Tracy McGrady exhibited some strange behavior as seen by him wearing Orlando Magic shorts (the rest of the team wore Rocket shorts)…

…and while Yao was in a serious and solemn mood (as every Rocket should be), McGrady was yucking it up with the press…

Click here for more photos showing the stark differences between Yao and McGrady’s mood and behavior.

It’s almost like McGrady knows his time is limited in Houston. Last night at the end of the game, I could just tell by his body language as he leaned forward on the bench watching the game as his team was being shellacked that he needed to soak it all in as his time with the Rockets winds down.

In a weird sense, I kind of feel sorry for him. No one likes to see a superstar fall so quickly, and to fall out of the fans’ and teammates’ favor with 3 straight teams in a row.

The game against the Bucks in Milwaukee was such a joke, I won’t even bother getting into many details other than to say the Rockets were outplayed again by a sub-.500 team, and played no defense as the Bucks racked up the most number of points against the Rockets this season. And they did it without their leading scorer (Michael Redd), rebounder (Andrew Bogut), and assist man (Luke Ridnour).

My oh my. How far we’ve come since last year’s 22-game winning streak. ABSOLUTELY PATHETIC.

It’s weird how all the players know they are sucking right now, but no one is doing anything about it.

Yao Ming’s psyche hurt more than his temporary arm pain
in an embarrassing 124-112 loss to Milwaukee Wednesday night.
Yao only scored 7 points on 2-of-8 shooting. Click here for
more photos.

After the game, Yao said, “Now is not early in the season. It’s not 20 games into the season. Now it’s 50 games into the season. We’re still stuck in here and talk about we still have time to fix it, from first game of the season and 10 games in the season and 50 games into the season. We still talk about we need to fix it.” Click here for Raymond’s full translation of the interview.

Luis Scola said of the Bucks, “They played with more energy, they ran faster, they played harder. I don’t know why it’s happening. I wish it doesn’t happen anymore. It’s really embarrassing.”

Rafer Alston summed up their matador defense after he himself played horrific D against Ramon Sessions: “We don’t try to play ‘D’. That’s just the bottom line. It’s coming to the point we’re not even trying. Then we have the audacity on offense to race the ball up the court. The mind-boggling thing is how do you race around on offense and walk around on defense. To me, that’s not even trying. It’s embarrassing.”

McGrady: “We can sit here and pretty much talk about what we talked about a couple days ago after the game — defense. We don’t know how to play. We don’t execute defensively. We’re just right now a team that doesn’t know how to play defense. The first quarter, second quarter, third quarter — they got whatever they wanted. You’re not going to win that way.

“The offense is not fluid. There’s too much one-on-one, no ball movement. We’re just a team that doesn’t have an identity. We don’t know who we are. We’ve been talking about this for so long.”

Ironic that he would say there is no ball movement.

To me, the players shoulder a big responsibility, but the coach must receive a big part of the blame, too.

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I was really looking forward to seeing Minnesota’s Al Jefferson play the Rockets Saturday night in Houston. I’ve remembered in recent seasons how he has been pretty good, but this season we’ve all heard how he’s stepped up his game to an even higher level, so let’s see what he’s got.

No doubt, Big Al delivered and was incredible. He torched the Rockets with 17 points on 8-of-12 shots and 8 rebounds in the first quarter alone, hitting several jumpers that pulled Yao out of the paint trying to defend him.

Seeing Yao outside of the paint having to defend against Jefferson’s J’s was a bit precarious since it seemed Al could blow by Yao with relative ease, but he didn’t have to because his jumper was falling just fine.

With the way it was playing out, it looked like Yao — who started the game missing his first 4 shots — was going to have to start thinking about getting some real competition for the Western Conference’s best center the rest of his career. Jefferson would finish Saturday with 36 points on 16-of-30 shots, and 22 boards.

Well, Jefferson might be one of the rising centers in the West who will give Yao a run for his money, but through his own play, Yao made a statement Saturday night that no one should forget about him just yet.

Yao throws one down against the entire Timberwolves team. Click here for more photos from the game.

Yao would hit 12 of his last 14 shots and just about neutralize Jefferson with 30 points of his own to lead Houston to a 107-90 victory. It was a classic duel that reminded me of great Rocket center matchups from years’ past: like Moses vs. Parish, Hakeem vs. Shaq. Now Yao vs. Al.

It was a physical game for Yao. Jefferson banged Yao’s left arm which made Yao feel like his arm was “burning.” Check out the photo>sHere are photos of Yao trying to stop the bleeding.

On this night, though, Rocket fans had more to worry about than who would win the physical bout between Yao and Al. They had to be concerned about winning a game against a team they should beat, which they should have done against Memphis Wednesday night.

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Note: I just changed the headline to the above for my post from last night. It’s so appropriate considering O.J. Mayo went off on them, the loss was pathetic, and both Aaron Brooks and Yao Ming had a stomach flu…

Let’s face it. Everyone is sick of the inconsistency of the Rockets. All the fans, the players, the coach, the front office, the media, you name it. After the Rockets lost their second game this season to the woeful Memphis Grizzlies, one of the worst teams in the league, the Rockets have reached a new low with a 104-93 loss Wednesday night.

Houston has now lost 7 games this season to teams that have had some of the worst records in the league: Memphis (2), Indiana, the Clippers, Washington, and Philadelphia (2).

They are also only a pathetic 14-13 against teams with losing records, and 14-7 with winning records.


Yao Ming tries to defend against O.J. Mayo who constantly blew by Rocket defenders on his way to scoring 32 points. Click here for more photos from the game.

Entering Wednesday night, The Grizzlies were a 12-35 team that had lost 7 consecutive HOME games, and had lost 12 in a row before winning Monday night on the road against a terrible Washington team. They are so bad, hardly anyone in Memphis is showing up for their games. There were tons of empty seats in the lower bowl the whole game, drawing only about 10,000 fans.

The radio talk show lines are burning up in Houston, and the natives are restless. I’ve seen it before, and I can just about guarantee that “change is coming,” to borrow a phrase used often over the past few months.

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