Yao Ming's Rise to Success
The "little Giant "of basketball has been improving his game.
As you may have noticed, 2005-2006 was Yao Ming's breakout
(breakout=expericencing sudden success that surpasses any previous achievement) season. Criticized during his first three seasons for being too passive and unable to play heavy minutes because of stamina (stamina=the physical and/or mental strength to do something which might be difficult and which will take a long time.) and foul (犯规=an act which is against the rules of a sport, often causing inury to another player)trouble,Yao answered his critics last season in a big way.
Yao,25, even has some saying he has surpassed Shaquille O'Neal and Ben Wallace to become the game's best center (中锋= a player whose position is between other players or in the center). At 7 feet 6 inches and 310 pounds, he certainly strikes an imposing (imposing=having an appearance which looks important or causes admiration) figure.
"But he's still trying to do something no one has ever done, which is play huge minutes at that size," said Rockets(休斯顿火箭队= the NBA team based in Houston,Texas) coach Jeff Van Gundy, who says Yao is one of the hardest-working players he's ever coached."I said it many times-he's so, so diligent(diligent=careful and using a lot of effort) about his craft .
"He comes early,stays late. So he's in as good a shape as you can be, and yet at times he's going to still have those nights where he's playing big minutes back-to-back where he's a little bit slow-footed."
