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CNN Live At Daybreak
Interview with Chris Cotter
Aired June 26, 2002 - 06:50 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: All eyes will be on the Houston Rockets tonight to see if they pick China's Yao Ming in the NBA draft. The team has been negotiating with the Chinese Basketball Association and Yao's former team to make sure the 7-foot-5 center can play an entire NBA season. It should be interesting.
Joining us now with more on the NBA draft, sports talk show host Chris Cotter from Atlanta's 790 The Zone.
Welcome back.
CHRIS COTTER, SPORTS HOST, 790 THE ZONE: And it's great to be back here, Carol.
COSTELLO: Wow.
COTTER: You know, can I say something about Anna Kournikova before we go to the NBA draft?
COSTELLO: Please do.
COTTER: I saw the so-called temper tantrum that we just aired here a little while ago. I've seen people throw phones. I've seen fist fights in locker rooms. Nothing compared to that.
COSTELLO: Nothing...
COTTER: That is not a temper tantrum, folks. That is an athlete...
COSTELLO: Why not? She stood up and sat down.
COTTER: .... who just lost at Wimbledon and she was being asked some very difficult questions and I think it's perfectly all right for her to sit up and say, hey, this is a taped interview, can we start over? And I think that was perfectly fine for her.
I mean I have, now, I have seen temper tantrums. That is not a temper tantrum. I have been injured in temper tantrums in locker rooms before, and that was very, very toned down.
COSTELLO: Exactly.
COTTER: Too much is being made of it because player-hating on Anna Kournikova. But anyways...
COSTELLO: Oh, she's easy to pick on.
COTTER: She's...
COSTELLO: I mean, you know, she's got it all. She's beautiful, she's wealthy and she is a pretty good...
COTTER: Ret. She should be a model. She should be a model and not a professional tennis player.
COSTELLO: OK, so she's not a great tennis player.
COTTER: She's much better in that area.
COSTELLO: OK. Well, let's talk basketball now, because the NBA draft is coming. And Houston really wants this guy from China. I know he's 7-foot-5, and he's, what, 300 pounds? But is he good?
COTTER: Well, that's why they want him, because he's 7-foot-5 and 300 pounds. Now...
COSTELLO: But is he good?
COTTER: He's never played in the NBA and historically players from Europe or from other leagues that have come into the NBA have had a hard time adjusting. And in the late '80s and early '90s when the Iron Curtain was falling, a lot of the G.M.s in the NBA went to the Eastern Block countries and started drafting these players. And they found out that they were having a hard time making the adjustment. So they slowed down a little bit.
But...
COSTELLO: Well, let's face it, China isn't exactly known for its basketball prowess.
COTTER: No, not at all. More on the women's game, actually. Actually, China actually has a pretty good women's game. But...
COSTELLO: So why does Houston want this guy so much, just to jack...
COTTER: Because he's big.
COSTELLO: Because he's big?
COTTER: He's 7'5" and 300 pounds.
COSTELLO: But I mean is he fast? Can he run?
COTTER: He has skills. I mean he has skills. He has skills going against the competition that he goes against in China and internationally, which is pretty good competition. But they're worried about the toughness. You've got to be physical. When you're down low in the NBA, you've got to be able to play with Shaq. You've got to be able to play with all these big guys. And what we've seen historically is that a lot of the foreign players that have international experience but not NBA experience have a tough time making that physical transition.
The foreign players that are very, very good in the NBA right now are more the outside shooters.
COSTELLO: Got you. And the other interesting thing about this Chinese player is that he's going to have to give half of his salary to China.
COTTER: Well, absolutely, and he's lucky he's even going to be able to keep half of it. The big thing right now, the only thing standing in the way is they're trying to iron things out with the Chinese Federation so that he can play in international games for them because they want him to play in the NBA. I mean it's a source of national pride for him to be in the spotlight, in the best league in the world. So they want that to happen.
But they also want to be able to win games on the international court. So as long as the Rockets promise to let him play in the world championships and things like that, they're fine with it. So they just have to get all the paperwork done. He'll be drafted first tonight by the Rockets.
COSTELLO: Oh, you think so?
COTTER: I think it'll happen.
COSTELLO: So who else are we to keep our eyes on tonight?
COTTER: Well, it's a real interesting draft. It's wide open. I mean you've got Chris Wilcox from Maryland coming out early; Caron Butler from U. Conn. also coming out; Drew Gooden from Kansas. I think the top three will be probably Yao Ming, Jay Williams will go to Chicago from Duke, then Mike Dunleavy will go to Golden State with the third pick. And Mike Dunleavy, it was questioned until just a couple of weeks ago whether he was even going to come out or not.
Can you imagine being the third pick overall, guaranteed millions in the NBA draft and thinking I might go back to school for one more year? How much better can you be? You're the third overall pick. Could you move up two spots? Maybe. But why? I mean he's coming out...
COSTELLO: Oh, it's always better to go back to school, though.
COTTER: He's going to be the third pick.
COSTELLO: I think that's refreshing, in a way, even if it's not made for the right reasons.
COTTER: You and I went to school, what, so we could we could make more money, so we could make a better living for ourselves.
COSTELLO: Yes? COTTER: He's going to make more money in a year than I'm going to make in the rest of my life.
COSTELLO: OK, I take it back.
COTTER: Go play basketball.
COSTELLO: OK, Chris Cotter.
Thank you for joining us once again. We appreciate it.
COTTER: Hey, I love it. Any time.
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