"Yao spoke to the media before practice and without any prompting he answered almost everything in English," a source told ClutchCity.net. "He was very understandable."

We're told Yao ran light sprints baseline to baseline before practice and Moochie Norris, who was not running with the team but was shooting around, would get close to Yao when he came near the baseline. Moochie would then go up for a layup, yelling, "Hey Steve! I was the first to shoot one over Yao!".

Jason Collier responded, "Mooch, you're gonna be famous in China."

"It was weird," said the source. "When Yao first got on the court and started shooting with Juaquin Hawkins and Oscar Torres, none of the guys really said anything to him. Finally once the stretching began, Francis came over and they talked back and forth during that period."

"While stretching, Cuttino told Yao that he needed to get his hair braided like Moochie, but I think that went over Yao's head."

Another funny element from practice, we're told, was that trainer Keith Jones would tell him things to do, such as stretching exercises, and most veterans kind of joke around about it or don't take it as seriously.

Ming reportedly did every single thing Jones told him to do right away, and that was different or funny enough to be noteworthy.