This week, Yao grabbed a clipboard and began choreographing footwork for a teammate. So the learning goes both ways in Houston, but Yao has been a curve buster, winning over critics who felt he was more delicate than an onion peel.
As it turns out, he has shown a thick skin on his bones.
Teams have tested his tolerance by burrowing beneath his ribs and turning his lean body into a scratching post.
"Yao just accepts it as a part of the game," Houston coach Rudy Tomjanovich said. "He may get mad at himself, but I've seen situations where veteran guys get physical, and all of the sudden, they're blowing a gasket. He has a very even temperament."
Not that Yao is on automatic emotion. Earlier this season, he received a technical foul, nabbed for an outburst of joy after a big play. The ref saw it as taunting; Yao was mortified.
O'Neal could use some humility in his shtick. Often, his comedic instincts go awry, as they did in his remark that surfaced recently: "Tell Yao, `Ching-chong, yang, wah-ah-so,"' Shaq said, later excusing himself as an idiot prankster.
Friday night, O'Neal tried to defuse the controversy by saying: "I already apologized. Yao is my brother. Asian people are my brothers. People tried to make it a war between blacks and Asians. That was disappointing."
Yao refused to trade barbs. Instead, he urged cultural awareness and global togetherness, in his remarks to the press.
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