TAIPEI, TAIWAN – Yesterday (Tuesday) Yao Ming was finally able to do what we’d all been waiting for — workout on the basketball court! YaoMingMania.com was fortunate to go along for the ride (literally) as we accompanied Yao in a van to/from the facility.

Yao Ming sports his new Yao Monster headphones on the way to the practice facility.

When we got to the practice facility, about 30 children were sitting on the court sidelines while a half-court practice game was taking place among some Chinese players. When Yao entered the gym, I’d say about 75 media people with video cameras and digital cameras just SWARMED to him. It made sense that so many media members had been invited to this workout since that would help promote his charity game Wednesday night in Taipei.

But what I never realized from still photographs I had seen in the past is the frenzy at which these guys MOVE to Yao when he shows up at a venue like this. It’s really an amazing sight to see and made me remember why I decided eight years ago to name this site “Yao Ming Mania.” It’s still maniacal over here.

In the U.S., there isn’t nearly as much media showing up at a venue like this one (and/or a large number aren’t ALLOWED in), and they usually keep themselves in check by being cool about how they move toward players when they enter a gym or a room. In China and Taiwan, it’s more of a mad rush, and they don’t seem to care about how they’re being perceived among each other.

Fortunately the organizers of the workout had plenty of security personnel around to make sure that Yao wasn’t touched. What was striking to me was how well Yao handled all of them crowding around him. He just keeps his composure and handles it with grace.

Later the media gave him more space as he did stretches on the floor with the help of a trainer, and then he proceeded to shoot lots of jumpers from 5 spots on the floor and mixed in some free throws, too.

Yao shoots jumpers free throws with much of the media looking on (there were many others watching who aren’t pictured in the photo above)

Yao looked sharper than ever, hitting most of his shots with a high degree of accuracy. He never needed to jump high off the floor to launch jumpers; maybe a couple of inches as most. Since he’s so strong and tall, he doesn’t need much lift to avoid getting his shot blocked.

By the end of his shootaround Yao was drenched in sweat, but he took the time to walk over to the 30 schoolchildren and sit in the middle of them to get his picture taken with them…with the dozens of media people following closely behind, of course.

I shot a bunch of video from this workout, so look for that video to get posted in the next couple of days, along with many more reports of Yao’s trip to both Beijing and Taipei. That will include another report of Yao practicing on the court Wednesday morning (Taipei time) with most of the NBA players who came to play on Yao’s charity tour.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 29th, 2010 at 2:04 am and is filed under China, Rockets' off-season. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.