Yao Ming on the men's basketball team's loss: There are two ways to take responsibility, and I can accept it

Infographic: Yao Ming

In the 2023 Basketball World Cup, the Chinese men's basketball team had a poor record and missed the Olympics for the second consecutive time. At the Hangzhou Asian Games, the Chinese men's basketball team failed to achieve its goal of defending the title. Yao Ming, chairman of the Chinese Basketball Association, accepted an exclusive interview with a reporter from Xinhua News Agency on the evening of the 6th and responded to some hot issues. The following is a transcript of the interview:

Reporter (hereinafter referred to as Ji): In this Asian Games, have our results met the pre-competition expectations?

Yao Ming (hereinafter referred to as Yao): To put it bluntly, it has not been achieved. Although it is not possible to completely compare the results of the last Asian Games, the performance of the men's basketball team did not meet our expectations. We faced a frustrating mentality after the World Cup defeat and it was a lot of difficulty to adjust quickly. But we still hope that we can defend our title at home... Reality is reality, and we must face it.

Q: After the loss to the Philippines that day, you stood there for a long time, what were you thinking?

Yao: After 30 years of basketball like me, I have seen all kinds of losses. As a member of the Chinese team, you must be very frustrated when you lose. As a team leader, I want to send the players back to the lounge as soon as possible, they are the most important because there are still games to play.

Q: Now that it's been two days, where did that game go?

Yao: Because I'm not a coach, I can't evaluate what's on the field. It must be slack. There are actually two ways to manifest this slackness, one is loose slackness, and the other is to eat the opponent and break the other party in one bite, which is actually a manifestation of slackness. These players are a very heavy moment for them and hopefully it will be an inspiration for their future.

Reporter: At the press conference that day, a reporter asked who was responsible for the loss, and Dorgjevic immediately said "it's me", while Zhao Jiwei said that the coach should not be blamed for the loss.

Yao: Losing the game must be responsible, there are every link, we are used to finding the most famous to carry these responsibilities. In fact, there will be problems of one kind or another in every link, but the more important question is who will push forward in the future? What should we do? This is the more important question.

Q: Two losses to the Philippines, is it because we lack more reliable core players in key moments after Yi Jianlian retired?

Yao: If you want to talk about the core players, I think first of all, Jiwei did a very good job. Due to Zhou Peng's injury and withdrawal, he must bear these things as a veteran player and as a captain. Including today's game, the second half was actually he and several other veteran players to lead everyone out.

There will be cores in any team, but there are differences between cores. Where are we missing? The two games we lost to the Philippines, if only for me, we lacked scoring explosiveness. I'm referring to single-player, a player like Maddie, who is 35.13 minutes and is able to shoot non-stop in a short period of time and send the ball to the basket like a machine gun. It doesn't just take technically mature training, he needs to be psychologically strong enough to support these things. This kind of player needs to have the habit of being a natural scorer, which we lack at the national team level. And in our culture, you have to stand up to being called "so independent."

Q: From the World Cup to the Asian Games, the results of the Chinese men's basketball team are not satisfactory, how do you evaluate the ability and level of Jordjevic?

Yao: We need a bridge that connects with international standards. I found a very interesting phenomenon at this Asian Games, Sasha (Jordjevic) met and made friends with many Serbian coaches during the two weeks of Asian Games village life - different sports, in different countries and regions (coaches). I would say that in a country as small as Serbia, there are so many coaches – we don't judge his level – accepted and used all over the world. On the other hand, when will our coaches be able to go out?

I sometimes can't help but think, if I didn't go to the NBA, I just stayed on the Shanghai team and ended up being a coach in Shanghai, what kind of person would I be?

Q: Looking back, why did you change the head coach and replace Du Feng's guidance less than a year before the Olympic qualification round?

Yao: This decision is difficult, but it is also due to objective conditions.

Q: What kind of objective conditions?

Yao: The head coach of the national team must be full-time. And we also respect Du's choice here.

Q: When does Djordjevic's contract expire? Is it convenient to reveal?

Yao: If I'm not mistaken, it would be by the end of this year. What we asked was that he couldn't come alone, he had to bring a small team, and we would equip him with the Chinese coaching staff. This is a clear requirement of ours, because we see Qiao Shuai as a bridge to the world. The teams guided by Du and Li Nan before all had international coaches, and we hope that there will be such an international team to help us get in touch with the world faster and better. We know how fast basketball is improving in the whole world and how fast we are improving, and we can't keep up now. So we will seriously evaluate these things (the evaluation of Djordjevic), but we must adhere to the international route.

After the 2019 World Cup, you said you would take responsibility for the loss. Later, some media seniors said that they did not see the in-depth reflection and summary of the Chinese Basketball Association in the following years. What do you think about this?

Yao: From 2019 to now, our contact with the international community and even society has decreased. Indeed, as the senior said, we do very little. Let me give you a statistic, for the U-Series (junior) event alone, we save almost 30 million a year, which is not a good thing, because we couldn't do the competition, and this year it has fully recovered. Another statistic, we just counted the U21, U19, U17 and U15 matches before the Asian Games, about 500 games. 45% of games have a win-loss gap of 21 points or more, and only 11% of games have a win-loss gap of less than 5 points.

Q: Lack of competition?

Yao: It takes a process to recover it. Indeed, as the old-timer said, what we have done is very limited, and we need to step up quickly.

Q: What do you think are the most important factors for the Chinese men's basketball team to miss the Olympic Games for two consecutive years?

Yao: First of all, there is the change in the format, which makes us need to make a systemic change, including the setting of the league.

Including the opponents we face now are different from before, right? And then naturalized players, we actually face certain limitations on our side, sometimes taking into account a level of acceptance of our culture. I think we are actually very lucky to have a player like Li Kyle who is so highly motivated and willing to join the Chinese men's basketball team...

I think in every link, if it is simply the national team, the league, the youth training - when I say youth training, it actually includes the integration of sports and education - we must fully consider international exchanges in every link.

Q: As the president of the Chinese Basketball Association, what kind of responsibilities do you need to bear?

Yao: I have two ways to take responsibility. The first one takes on the responsibilities of the past, resigns and goes home, and Shanghai is quite close to this anyway. The second way to take responsibility is to accumulate these things, analyze them, and design an action plan for the next step. I can accept both approaches.

Q: In the 2028 Olympic Games, can the Chinese men's basketball team enter? How to make a change?

Yao: We can't put aside the possibility of the 2028 Olympics, but it's a difficult road. We're going to have a major operation, and it's not something that can be done with minor fixes. From the composition of the national team, from the reform of the league, from the entire youth training including internationalization, including the integration of sports and education, this is a major operation covering the entire basketball society, not just who we choose to be the coach, how do we provide a better guarantee mechanism for the national team, or what kind of so-called basketball style we create. It is a concrete and systematic overhaul. Because our research has just begun, I don't want to be so hasty about what we should do.

Q: Is the challenge of the position of president of the Chinese Basketball Association different from what you originally expected?

Yao: There's a big difference. It has been a very enriching experience for me, and I am very grateful that it has given me this opportunity to touch such a level over the past few years. It turns out that I may only look at it from a one-sided point of view, whether it is from the perspective of an athlete or a club, and rush in just with a passion, but I really feel that many things need to be thought about more rationally. Although some things have been done, it is more about the various defeats that everyone sees... There are reasons for this, and I have to seriously summarize it for these reasons, and how to make our social mobilization ability and centripetal force stronger, this is what I need to think about.

Q: The Chinese women's basketball team successfully defended its title. How can we continue this momentum and better prepare for next year's Paris Olympics?

Yao: The women's basketball team is under a lot of pressure right now. Competitive sports are like that, when you keep winning, the pressure builds up, everyone wants you to win more, and expectations of you are getting higher and higher. At this time, you have more and more things to take care of, and you will have things that you can't do, and a small crack can cause the entire levee to be washed away. Many problems that arise on the field will actually be reflected in advance off the field. From the perspective of the association manager, our job is to keep knocking and knocking to see where there are some signs and hopefully prevent it.

But I think it's not enough to just use a preventive mentality, because in terms of the results of the national team, competitive sports have to rush forward, there is only one way. Even if you are rushing forward when you are ahead, in fact, the lessons of the men's basketball team in this Asian Games have already left us. When you stop rushing, you're actually being caught up.

Q: Was that a big reason for that loss in the Philippines?

Yao: Yes. You think you've sprinted 100 meters and been ahead a lot of times, and you think you can run to the finish line with a buffered speed, but in fact someone else has caught up. This is actually a very profound lesson. But we must try our best to find this kind of sign, prevent it in advance, and maintain an upward and forward state.

Reporter: In the 2002 Busan Asian Games, you were still full of spirits despite losing, and you are now full of lawsuits, which one do you prefer?

Yao: It's completely different, you can't say what you prefer. In fact, sometimes when things just happen, there will definitely be a lot of pressure in my heart, and there will be some amounts. Maybe in my early 20s, it took a week to get better, now it may be a day, but you can't deny that that state exists.

The key is to get out. In fact, you can think of any challenge, whether it's the management of the national team or the league's various problems, as the next O'Neill rushing at you with all his might.

Q: Do you still have confidence in the future of the Chinese men's basketball team and Chinese basketball as the president of the association?

Yao: Our confidence will come from our actions. Empty talk of faith does not exist, I can easily shout a slogan: I have faith. But what do we do critically? Can our research report form something that everyone agrees on? An executable thing? This will give me confidence, and it will give everyone confidence, and I have no way to answer this question until then.