Two new articles from Reuters and CNN quote Yao on more insightful comments about Jeremy Lin (click here to see both articles). Here are the best excerpts (Yao’s quotes are in red):

“Shanghai-native Yao said Lin, who stands 1.91m, could change the way China selects and trains its basketball players.”

“This is something else that Jeremy Lin has brought to us. It has given us something to reflect on, whether there are imperfections over the development and selection process for our basketball players over the past 10 or 20 years.”

“Yao said he had known Lin was a good player but was stunned that he was able to reproduce the sensational form night after night.”

“I am very surprised but also very happy. When he played well in his first game I thought this was a great start and perhaps he would soon have more stable game time.

“But I never thought he would perform up to such levels as he had today.”

“Lin has said he communicates often with Yao, who he regards as a role model. Yao said he did not have much advice to give because of their different backgrounds but had always encouraged and cheered him on.

“First, New York and Houston are different. Also, the cultures of the two basketball teams are different, the cities are different, the team mates he faces are different, so I don’t wish to tell him too much.

“If I do so, perhaps I will give him too much pressure.”

“We have a lot of talented young athletes here who are passionate about basketball. They all want be the next Jeremy.

“I think they can relate more to Jeremy because they’re more common-sized.”

“The easy part is to find a strong basketball player — I have the size; Shaquille O’Neal: big and strong; Kobe, LeBron, all those names. Jeremy has basketball IQ — you can’t program that.

“He’s the kind of player I’d like to play with if I’m still a player — he’s a team player and everybody likes the way he wins a game. Honestly, he did much more than I’d expected.”

“He gives a lot of hope to kids with the same background like his: Asian-Americans, second generation or maybe third.”

“They can follow his footprints and have more confidence in playing basketball.”

“I know people talk about me giving him tips — it’s really not that. I just congratulated him and said I’m happy for him.”

“I told him we’ll support him and I’m a big fan of his.”

The video below is circulating on the Web as Chase Budinger gets ready to participate in the dunk contest this Saturday during All-Star weekend in Orlando.

You can tell it’s actually staged like some of those “reality commercials” that have become popular over the past couple of years, but you have to give credit for the humor and creativity involved, especially getting fake reporters to participate!

You can follow Chase’s adventures in Orlando (and beyond) at Facebook.com/ChaseBudinger.

Just out this week…It’s Lincredible it happened for the second straight week. He’s deserving…

Here’s the cover from last week:

There have been many articles written over the past couple of weeks explaining why Jeremy Lin slipped through the cracks on his road to stardom. How could this happen? Most people say it was an understandable mistake for those GMs and coaches who evaluated his talent when he was on their roster (namely Golden State and Houston).

However, Kenny Smith, a former point guard for the Rockets who had a pretty decent career, has a different take on it. On the Colin Cowherd show late last week, he actually called out the GMs and coaches involved for not being very good evaluators of talent.

Click the audio below (Smith talks about it at the 40-second mark).

Here’s the transcript:

To be a great coach or a great general manager, I don’t think you have to be an x’s and o’s person (a great one). I don’t think you have to have a great relationship with your talent. I think that you have to be able to EVALUATE talent. That’s numero uno. If this guy fell off of everyone’s radar, and he’s been in your practice facility there working, and he can do this in an NBA game, you just don’t have a great idea on how to evaluate talent! And so that means you’re drawing up plays for the wrong guys. That means you’re having conversations with the wrong guys!

(After the emergence of Lin), there are guys sitting on NBA benches saying, “See, I’m telling you. They don’t know how to evaluate talent up here!”

Here’s a video from tonight’s ESPN Sportscenter talking about Jeremy Lin’s game against the Mavericks today (and more), with analysis and commentary from Magic Johnson, Jon Barry, Chris Broussard and Michael Wilbon.

What else can you say? JLin proved to any doubters today — against the world champion Dallas Mavericks — that he is the real deal. My jaw just dropped as he continued to dazzle on the biggest stage (in New York City on ABC), while also hitting some big 3-pointers, leading the Knicks on a furious 4th quarter rally to beat the Mavericks 104-97. He scored 28 points, had 14 dimes, and had 5 steals.

JLin had 7 turnovers, but as Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni said, he wants him to continue to be aggressive. And NBA analyst Hubie Brown said because the Knicks are continually winning, you can’t reduce his minutes just because of the turnovers. He offers too much in other facets of the game.

Here are highlights from the game:

Here’s a video of Magic Johnson and Jon Barry after the Knicks-Mavericks game commenting on how good Jeremy is:

Here’s a video of ESPN interviewing Jeremy this weekend, getting his thoughts on his Lincredible journey, where he admits he was “reduced to tears” last year:

For more photos from the Knicks-Mavericks game, click here.

We take a break from all the “Linsanity” to let you know that Yao, as busy as he is, still took the time on Friday to go to Leshan of Sichuan to checkout a school that will be refurbished by the Yao’s Foundation and Anta, the Chinese athletic sports apparel company. A new school complex will also be built.

Yao Ming’s wife Ye Li also attended the visit. Pictured below is Yao with school children drawing a picture of the new school with crayons.

For more photos of their visit, click here.

ESPN did a great job tonight analyzing Jeremy Lin‘s skills in the video below.

Hmmmm, I would have expected NBA teams that pride themselves on analyzing a player’s “numbers” and athletic abilities with all kinds of computerized tools like ESPN uses in this video would have valued Lin’s skills better to at least NOT CUT HIM!

Similarly, below is a video of Lin versus John Wall in the 4th quarter of a Vegas Summer League game in 2010. Again, Lin even showed back then he was no fluke against the #1 draft pick.

As Steve Kerr mentioned today on ESPN, Lin was a casualty of racial stereotyping. This is just like what Yao experienced back in Yao’s rookie year when so-called experts called him a “stiff” and a “bust” before the Rockets started playing him decent minutes to show what he could do.

A great interview of Yao on NBA.com about Jeremy right here!

It was announced this morning that Yao Ming’s friend and former teammate Chase Budinger of the Rockets will be one of 4 players to participate in the dunk contest in Orlando the weekend after next.

You may remember that Yao led a chant for Chase to throw down a dunk back in 2010 during a Yao foundation charity basketball games in Taipei, Taiwan. Check that out at the 8:33 mark of the video below. It’s really funny. Interestingly, right before this happened, Jeremy Lin threw down a dunk (at the 8:07 mark).

If you want to see a highlight reel of some of Chase’s best dunks (dating back to even his high school days), check out this video on Rockets.com