Yao Ming pisses on China and its pathetic national team

It turns out that Yao Ming forgot that he is Chinese.

Yep, Yao Ming, Asia's first successful NBA phenom playing center for the Houston Rockets, apparently has no interest whatsoever in playing for the Chinese national team. Yao would rather get some rest before the new NBA season begins and he could care less about his home country.

The seven-foot giant from the Houston Rockets was faulted for taking too much time off to recover from his last NBA season. The All-China Sports federation claims that Yao Ming is just spending too much time planning his wedding and making special appearances for the Special Olympics and the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

(Probably because doing those will earn him more dough...)

''No matter how lofty public welfare activities are, they can't be allowed to take first place in a player's life,'' the China Sports Daily said in a published article, clearly irritated with who was supposed to be their basketball icon.

The article also said, ''No matter how sweet personal life is, it can't be compared to the exultation of capturing glory for one's nation.'' Apparently, these guys have no clue what earning American dollars is like compared to earning yuan renminbi (or whatever they call their money there...)

This is the first time Yao Ming was criticized by China and the Chinese national team. Throughout his first three seasons in the NBA playing for the Houston Rockets, Yao escaped criticism from the Chinese media by keeping his commitments to the Chinese national team.

While Yao Ming is keeping his ass playing for the Americans, China's other star, Yi Jianlian, STILL won't be playing in the U.S. and is not committed to playing for the Milwaukee Bucks, the same team that drafted him No.6 overall in the 2007 NBA draft.

Apparently, Yao wants to be an American and Yi wants to keep eating noodles.

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Yao Ming Chinese national team