By Luke T. Johnson (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-02-27 09:35

The Year of the Rat is in full swing, and the Rockets and Bucks are headed in opposite directions.

Down in Houston, the Rockets are enjoying their longest winning streak of the decade. The 12-game run is their best since the club won 15 straight in its championship 1993-94 season. Last week even saw the team break a franchise record by winning its tenth consecutive road game. Houston, which had dropped from the ranks of the Western Conference elite by the end of 2007, has lost only four times this year and now finds itself just three games out of first place in the conference.

Yao Ming has been at the center of his team's remarkable run, averaging just over 23 points and 11 rebounds per game. He has, quite simply, been the sort of steady inside force that wins NBA championships. Over the course of the season, his timidity has disappeared and in its place now stands a commanding floor general. Yao's confidence has also spread to his teammates, who take the court with a newfound swagger.

The situation could not be more different for Yi Jianlian and the Milwaukee Bucks. Winners of only four of their last 12 games, the Bucks are falling apart at the seams. The trade deadline passed without Milwaukee making any moves, leaving it mired in the mediocrity it has been getting used to all season.

Yi's fortunes also seem to be on the wane. His downward trend began during the second "NBA China Derby" back in early February, a game the Rockets won (the third win of their current streak). Sometime in the first quarter of that game, Yi tweaked his right shoulder while fighting for position under the hoop. He played the rest of the game, but his dismal 1-for-10 shooting display suggested all was not right.

The rookie went on to miss the next two games, and when he returned he started on the bench for the first time in his career. Players rarely lose their starting spots due to injury, but on a team searching for answers like the Bucks, many saw Yi's injury as a good time to experiment with the lineup. Charlie Villanueva seems to be the Bucks starting power forward for the foreseeable future, which may be just as well for Yi, who seems to have crashed hard into the so-called rookie wall.

The All Star break was not a restful time for either Yao or Yi, nor was it very productive. Yao, a starter in the main event, managed only six points in just over 13 minutes of play. Yi fared slightly better in the Rookie Challenge with eight points in nearly 24 minutes off the bench.

But Yi seems to be taking his recent setbacks in stride as he sets his sights on the Beijing Games rather than the bottom-feeding Bucks. Who could blame him for looking past his club's lost season, toward what will be one of the biggest moments of his basketball career in the Chinese capital in August?

"I think that right now I'm just preparing my heart for the Olympics," he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (jsonline.com) during All Star festivities. "I'm working and struggling in practice to get my skills up to be ready for the Olympics."