Should Yao Ming even be playing?

[NickLidstrom]

I'm glad to see that the majority of people in this thread disagree with the OP.

1) An athlete has the right to value an Olympic appearance (not even a medal) over any NBA accomplishment. I don't care if he's American or Chinese. The Olympics, to many people, is about the essence of sports: competing for the sheer joy of it, not for a monetary reward (that's not completely true in practice, but it's certainly a lot closer to that ideal than the NBA). That's not even counting the fact that he gets to represent his country.

2) The games are in Beijing! This might not seem like a big deal to Americans, but many Chinese are extremely proud of this fact. You have to consider that the PRC was established in 1949. Before that, there was a decades long struggle between warlords, nationalists, communists and foreign powers. An 80 year old in China has seen a bloody civil war, an economic disaster (GLF) that resulted in 30 million deaths, the complete decay of social order (GPCR) and several decades of complete economic depression. Even a 45+ year old Chinese usually has some pretty awful memories of the GPCR. Consider what it might mean to people like this to have their country and culture recognized on such an important international stage. Even ex-pats who tend to look unfavorably on China's human rights/one child policy are taking pride in this fact.

[Lakers_4_Life]

The Chinese govt. takes half his salary each year.

OMFG Yao is the only NBA player that pays taxes to the government?

Uh.. You don't know **** about Yao Ming. The Chinese govt. takes taxes PLUS half his salary. You wouldn't know, you're a Lakers fan.

You are wrong on this. Half of his ROOKIE contract. The contract he is currently on is not touched in that manner. The Shanghai Sharks his old team in China and the Chinese Basketball Association got 50% to let him go.

No different than how most the teams in Europe operate when they let a big player leave to the NBA and either get a big buyout or the player has to pay them out of his NBA contract down the line in payments.

[Lakers_4_Life]

If i am not mistaken (anyone can correct me) Chinese Gov stopped taking money from Yao after his rookie contract.

Yao is the face of Chinese Olympic team , he must play even with 2 broken fingers and bad kidney, this will be his last Olympic and it's in his home country, it would be ridiculously stupid not to represent your country.

Last but not least, what is communism? Does anyone really know what is the true definition of that term? Basically Communism is one kinda of economic system that was never meant to be working on this planet. China is not longer a communism country, it's just the political tool be using against their economy grow and success, to create separations. I think only Cuba and maybe North Korea should be consider communist country these days.

Yes you are right. Yao only gave half of his salary to China when he was on his rookie deal. They don't get part of his max contract.

China is NOT using a communist form of economy anymore. It really shows ignorance every time people refer to them as "commies". If I remember correctly it was back in the late 70s to early 80s when they dropped the communist economic system. Anyone who thinks China still has a communist economic system is living decades in the past.

[abcdef]

Yao does NOT give half of his salary to the Chinese government. The Shanghai Sharks got half of Yao's rookie scale contract as a transfer fee, but not on this current contract. That's IT. I have no idea why this myth persists.

[Lakers_4_Life]

Yao does NOT give half of his salary to the Chinese government. The Shanghai Sharks got half of Yao's rookie scale contract as a transfer fee, but not on this current contract. That's IT. I have no idea why this myth persists.

You are right. It's in the Ric Bucher book. It actually says I believe the Shanghai Sharks and the Chinese Basketball Association got it, not just the Sharks. I could be wrong, since it's been several years since I read the book. This is pretty much the same way European clubs operate except for the league getting compensated too.

The reason these types of myths start is just like Texas Longhorns said, he saw someone say it on a message board and it became "fact" to him and others, they then in turn keep repeating this myth as fact. It's the same reason why Bush said Iraq had WMD's and it became a "fact" because instead of actually checking this the US media just accepted anything he said as "fact" and then kept repeating it as if it was.

It's because people don't read and find the truth out for themselves.

[evilRyu]

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edited
-thief

[Don Draper]

Yao does NOT give half of his salary to the Chinese government. The Shanghai Sharks got half of Yao's rookie scale contract as a transfer fee, but not on this current contract. That's IT. I have no idea why this myth persists.

You are right. It's in the Ric Bucher book. It actually says I believe the Shanghai Sharks and the Chinese Basketball Association got it, not just the Sharks. I could be wrong, since it's been several years since I read the book. This is pretty much the same way European clubs operate except for the league getting compensated too.

The reason these types of myths start is just like Texas Longhorns said, he saw someone say it on a message board and it became "fact" to him and others, they then in turn keep repeating this myth as fact. It's the same reason why Bush said Iraq had WMD's and it became a "fact" because instead of actually checking this the US media just accepted anything he said as "fact" and then kept repeating it as if it was.

It's because people don't read and find the truth out for themselves.

Aren't you supposed to be suspended?

[astrallite]

Yeah, because Imperialism is so much better than communism. I'm sure the Chinese are just chomping at the bits to be a waste land war economy for Private Military Corporations while American citizens get to pay for the Big Corporate Adventure which they get nothing out of except to be ostensibly called "patriots."

Oh yeah, sounds real good.

[spacemonkey]

Wow.

[Dynamos]

Olympics aren't even nearly as important as the NBA..the Olympics in general have been irrelevant for years..full of controversy and performance enhancing drugs..they don't really appeal anymore..it's been like this for a minute..

Kobe and Lebron and others have said that a gold medal and playing for your entire country is more important that them than an nba ring and just playing for some team