Yao Ming arrived in London a couple of days ago for the 2012 Olympics. He will be a basketball announcer for CCTV5. Click here for more photos of Yao arriving at the airport in England.

You can bet we will have more photos of Yao in London as the Games start and progress, so make sure to come back!

In case you missed it, a couple of articles about Jeremy Lin from the past few days has been published that I really wanted to bring to your attention.

This one from the Houston Chronicle is similar to many that we have read about Lin’s upbringing, but has much more information than has been revealed before. For example…

– When he was in the 8th grade, he told his pastor that he would play in the NBA someday.

– Details about Lin’s high school in Palo Alto, CA.

– His brother Joseph, who plays at a Division III school in New York, is a better shooter than Jeremy.

– His parents put academics first.

– As a child, he made his Sunday school teachers cry since he was such a handful.

– He was a little cocky and stubborn as a ninth grader, with his shooting coach saying that Lin was “practically uncoachable.”

– While in high school, he broke his ankle in a YMCA pickup game, which became a turning point “because it humbled me and made me realize that I couldn’t take anything in life for granted.”

– His father is 5-6, and neither of his brothers is 6-0. Lin grew to 6-3 in college and now weighs 212 pounds.

– When he is back in Palo Alto, he sleeps in the same bedroom at his parents’ home. He recently turned one of the spare bedrooms in his parents’ house into a “man cave,” and even went to Ikea and assembled the furniture himself.

– Much, much more!

The other article from the Chronicle goes into detail how the Rockets went after signing Lin.

– The Rockets decided early that they were going to pursue signing Lin, even with Kyle Lowry on the roster. It turned out to be a smart move. General Manager Daryl Morey states the following:

“We planned the free-agent targets we were going to go after at that meeting. He was high on the list. We thought that strategically moving (Kyle) Lowry might be the right choice because we thought we could get the most for him. We thought turning him into a lottery pick would be the right thing. We did anticipate we might lose Goran (Dragic) because we knew he was going to be pursued by multiple teams and if it was a deal we were not comfortable with, we knew we’d have to walk away. We were going after Jeremy no matter what.”

– They wanted to sign Lin after the 2010 Las Vegas Summer League, but the Golden State Warriors outbid them.

– After Lowry was traded to Toronto (since the Raptors weren’t able to acquire Steve Nash), it was Rockets’ owner Leslie Alexander‘s idea to get more aggressive in increasing the offer to Lin and his agents. Morey didn’t think they would be open to more money since it would make it more difficult for the Knicks to match it, and was surprised when they accepted.

– Morey thought the Knicks would match the Rockets’ offer up until the very last minute when the Knicks let Lin know they would not be matching it.

Today’s print edition of the New York Times published a good piece on Jeremy Lin following Yao’s path in the NBA and China, getting some quotes from Yao himself. Here are some interesting excerpts:

So it was no surprise that as Lin figured out his future, seeking millions on the free-agent market while trying to remain loyal to the Knicks, he consulted with Yao.

This time, Yao said, he was of only limited help.

“Only he knew what he needed most,” Yao said in a telephone interview from China. “He had to make the decision on his own. I didn’t want to affect him too much.”

Lin’s decision to sign an offer sheet from the Houston Rockets, Yao’s former team, and the Knicks’ decision to let Lin go, set off a fierce debate in New York.

Yao, for his part, thought the outcome was ideal.

“I’m so glad the Knicks didn’t match the contract,” Yao said. “Houston is a good place for Jeremy to come to. It’s a good fit because both sides can provide the best opportunity for each other.”

Yao recalled that the environment in a smaller market helped make him a better player. In eight seasons, all with the Rockets, the 7-foot-6 Yao averaged 19 points, 9.2 rebounds and 1.9 blocks as a center.

“In Houston, we have a very good community and great fans,” Yao said. “With less media coverage, I think it made me focus more on basketball. I think that’s one reason I played so well.”

The Rockets hope that Lin, who is of both Chinese and Taiwanese descent, can continue the franchise’s popularity in China, for which Yao was responsible.

“The people in China are very familiar with Houston,” said Yao, who, since retiring from the N.B.A. because of chronic injuries, has become the owner of the Shanghai Sharks of the Chinese Basketball Association. “The Rockets have been a symbol here for the last 10 years, and now that can be continued. It’s great for people here. I can’t imagine them being any more excited than this.”

The Houston Chronicle’s beat writer Jonathan Feigen posted an article this morning with quotes from Yao about Jeremy Lin becoming a Rocket. Here are some quotes:

He stayed out of the Rockets efforts to bring Jeremy Lin back to Houston, but as they pursued the player they hope will become their future star, their former star wanted Lin in Houston, too. By Friday, a year to the day after Yao officially announced his retirement, he was happy a friend had joined his team.

“I heard the Rockets gave Jeremy an offer few days ago,” Yao said via email while traveling to London for the Olympics. “I just wished the Big Apple would not match that. Fortunately the Knicks didn’t.

“I consider Jeremy Lin a very good puzzle (piece) for the reconstruction of the Rockets. He is an excellent team player, and at the critical time he will not be soft, which has been proven in the past. But most important is his experience, just like the Rockets, always underestimated by others. It is this kind of environment created his invincible personality.”

“I believe the Rockets made a good decision,” Yao said. “I wish the team good luck on the new season.”

All of this excitement over Lin joining the Rockets reminds me so much of 10 years ago when the mania over Yao Ming started.

Here’s a recap of some of Jeremy Lin‘s Thursday’s press conference in Houston:

Full video of the press conference:

Here’s a link to Lin’s interview with ESPN’s Rachel Nichols on Thursday as well:

…And here are pics…

Breaking news! Click on the images below to see the underlying news stories.

Congratulations to the Rockets, owner Leslie Alexander, and GM Daryl Morey for pulling off something that everyone thought would be impossible. Houston has really needed a shot in the arm after so many disappointments (Yao’s injuries, missing the playoffs the last 3 seasons, etc.).

Welcome to Houston, Jeremy!

A report this afternoon reveal that the Knicks won’t match the Rockets’ offer sheet to Jeremy Lin, and he will become a Rocket. Even if this doesn’t happen, you have to give a ton of credit to Rockets’ GM Daryl Morey for trying, and I have never been one of those “In Morey We Trust” defenders.

About 7 months ago when the Rockets waived Lin right around Christmas because of a logjam at point guard (given the bad decision to keep Jonny Flynn instead), it turned out that move was probably one of the worst personnel decisions in recent history.

Lin would go on to show that he’s pretty good. The boxscores, the in-depth stats, and the wins that followed showed he’s not a fluke.

Many of Morey’s defenders at the time said that no one knew how good Lin was going to be (nor the Golden State Warriors or Dallas Mavericks, who also let him go), so the decision to cut him was understandable.

But on February 9th, Daryl Morey tweeted:

“We should have kept [Jeremy Lin]. Did not know he was this good. Anyone who says they knew misleading U.”

It was refreshing that Morey admitted he made a mistake, but it was the second part of the tweet suggesting those people who thought Lin was worth keeping around would be “misleading U” was a little disturbing. It was like he was trying to make an excuse for his mistake. Interestingly, Morey has removed that tweet from his Twitter account, perhaps because he later realized that it was wrong for him to make excuses.

Other analysts, like former NBA champion Kenny Smith, questioned if the Rockets and Morey really knew how to evaluate personnel, as evidenced in the following statement .

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!

So to me, the number one thing for a coach is to recognize who your talent is on your team….

(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!

For what it’s worth, even Kobe Bryant said that all the GMs who passed on Lin should be fired.

Granted, the Rockets under Morey’s leadership have made some good personnel decisions, but they have also made many questionable ones. But you have to give credit to Morey — for better or worse — for trying to knock the Rockets out of terminal mediocrity by taking a risk getting rid of a lot of their players to position themselves for Dwight Howard, and now to be on the cusp of getting Lin.

Ironically, the Rockets’ being in position to get Lin back wouldn’t be happening if they hadn’t underbid their offer to re-sign Goran Dragic, who signed with Phoenix because the Rockets were not willing to guarantee a 4th year like Phoenix had.

But you have to give kudos to Morey for having a Plan B in place to quickly try to sign Lin to an offer sheet after Dragic declined their offer. No other team was as quick to the punch, probably because they were afraid that the Knicks would match an offer “up to a billion dollars,” as the Knicks had signaled, and it would be a wasted effort.

And you have to give credit to Morey for understanding the CBA rules early enough to construct a poison pill that would make it extremely expensive for the Knicks to counter because of luxury tax considerations. Then he pulled another brilliant move by upping the ante in the 3rd year of the contract to about $14.8 million after the Knicks went out and signed some other players, putting them more in a financial bind to match the offer to Lin.

Now with the signing of Lin a potential reality, I bet there are many other GMs (Golden State, Dallas, etc.) who had wished they had tried to sign Lin to an offer sheet as quickly as the Rockets did.

Also, Morey was ballsy enough to create — I would think — a huge stir among the NBA GM ranks to make it a very uncomfortable situation for the Knicks. I imagine in the small fraternity of NBA GMs, it’s much easier to not ruffle too many feathers out of fear of future deals becoming be more difficult to pull off by increasing the size of the poison pill right before signing Lin to the offer sheet. Conventional wisdom seems to reward blending in, stay friendly with everyone, be fairly conservative, build through the draft, make small incremental trades and free agency signings, and hope for the best.

But as we have seen the past few years with the Rockets, that doesn’t get you very far. So Morey has evolved to become more aggressive, just like when everyone thought Pat Riley in Miami was crazy a couple of years ago to clear all that cap space with hopes of bringing LeBron James and Chris Bosh to South Beach to join Dwyane Wade. It was a big risk, but it obviously worked out. Perhaps Morey has learned from what Miami did, and is changing his strategy to be just as aggressive.

In Morey’s case, I don’t recall a potential transaction in recent NBA (or professional sports) history where a GM has targeted another team’s restricted free agent using tactics that are so creative and unusual (like making a poison pill even harder to swallow by increasing the 3rd year another $5 million). It may have happened before, but one doesn’t come to mind.

It would have been so easy for Morey and Co. to put on a skeptical front about Lin as his career advanced as a Knick. Everyone had already seemed to give Morey a pass for having cut Lin. But you have to give Morey credit for doing his homework, looking at Lin objectively through analyzing his stats and video as a Knick, and going after him again.

Rarely do you see that kind of humility from a GM to not only admit past mistakes, but to try to correct it when a small opportunity arose to re-acquire Lin. Even head coach Kevin McHale said recently that if they knew last December that Lin was as good as he played in New York, they would have cut half their team to keep him.

If the Knicks don’t match the Rockets’ offer sheet later tonight and Lin becomes a Rocket, and somehow the Rockets are able to trade for Dwight Howard this off-season, the Rockets will become immediate contenders in the West. Furthermore, Howard will probably be more inclined to sign an extension with the Rockets since he would have a very good point guard breaking down defenses and dishing him the ball.

It also doesn’t hurt that Lin would be highly followed among hundreds of millions of Chinese. Just look at all the marketing opportunities that came to Yao Ming’s teammates (Shane Battier, Aaron Brooks, Luis Scola, etc) just by being associated with Yao. That could be enough to offset the advantages of Howard wanting to go to the Lakers or the Nets.

If none of this works out, it will be disappointing, but in my book Morey will have redeemed himself by working his butt off to try to fix past mistakes when it would have been much easier to play it safe and go in a different direction. Many GMs would have opted for the easier route to move on.