{"id":453436,"date":"2026-02-02T10:37:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T10:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/453436\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T10:37:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T10:37:08","slug":"chinese-players-often-lack-survival-instinct-needed-to-thrive-in-nba-yao-ming-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/453436\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese players often lack \u2018survival instinct\u2019 needed to thrive in NBA, Yao Ming says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Houston Rockets star Yao Ming believes Chinese players trying to make it in the NBA often lack the \u201csurvival instinct\u201d needed to succeed compared with their rivals.<\/p>\n

The former head of the Chinese Basketball Association, who is one of his country\u2019s most famous sporting exports, questioned whether players approached their time among the game\u2019s elite with the right mindset.<\/p>\n

Speaking during the season premiere of the famous mainland television programme Thirteen Talks, Yao told host Xu Zhiyuan he had struggled during his time in the league because while most players were fighting to survive, he had gone to improve.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy didn\u2019t I need to worry about survival?\u201d Yao said. \u201cBecause if I didn\u2019t do well in the NBA, I could come back to China, so what I thought about in the NBA was learning.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the 45-year-old hinted that the safety net provided to players in China was partly responsible for the difficulties they had in adapting to the NBA.<\/p>\n

\"YaoYao Ming appeared in the season premiere of Thirteen Talks with host Xu Zhiyuan. (Photo: Tencent)<\/p>\n

\u201cI learned two words in the NBA,\u201d Yao said. \u201cAggressive and hungry \u2013 they both relate to survival.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Houston Rockets star Yao Ming believes Chinese players trying to make it in the NBA often lack…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,512,21421,234138,7220,590,234134,11475,234133,85,234136,234135,54232,234137],"class_list":["post-453436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-china","tag-chinese-basketball-association","tag-chinese-players","tag-houston-rockets","tag-nba","tag-nba-all-star-team","tag-nba-hall-of-fame","tag-shanghai-sharks","tag-sports","tag-thirteen-talks","tag-xu-zhiyuan","tag-yao-ming","tag-youth-basketball-competition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}