I was lucky enough to get a chance to "sit down" (via video-conferencing) with Yao Ming on Thursday. Yao was in Houston at the time, but met with a few writers from New York and Beijing to talk about the upcoming Olympics and how his busted foot's holding up. You can read the full feature here; of particular interest is a candid quote where he talks about how "beaten and defeated" his injuries have left him feeling at times.

While the Chinese media were understandably focused on Yao's take on the upcoming Olympics, I was hoping to get his thoughts on this year's playoffs, and, more specifically, the Rockets. So I asked him who he thought was going to win it all this season. He seemed a little taken aback by a non-Olympic question, but he eventually said he sees the Lakers and Celtics in this year's finals. And he even predicted a winner.

"I like the Celtics to win it all," said Yao. "The Big 3 makes a difference. The Celtics are focused on defense, and defense always wins championships."

After that, I asked him what he thought the Rockets needed to do to contend next season.

"Injuries are our biggest problem. Injuries and size," said Yao. "We got better power forwards this year in Luis Scola and Carl Landry, but we still need more size. Look at all the teams that are contending and they all have a lot of size and they play very strong defense."

Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to remark about how it's kind of surprising to hear a dominant 7'6" big man say his team needs to get bigger in order to succeed, especially when that team finishes first in the league in rebounding, second in rebounding differential, and eighth in blocked shots. But maybe Yao was speaking more to the fact that he feels as though Houston's current crop of backup bigs aren't effective enough to adequately spell him for long stretches, and he needs more help down low to avoid constantly getting injured.

I'll never know; the Beijing media crush ran interference. But if you see Cookie Monster wandering aimlessly about the streets of downtown Houston or Kinshasha with a jilted look on his face, give him a hug for me, please.