Why is it Yao's fault that HE's NOT GOOD ENOUGH?
He didn't make himself a star, and he hasn't earned that through his play. The NBA marketing machine isn't under his control either, that was their choice to market him that way, incentivized a a billion Chinese Fans.
The real story of that series was that Utah is becoming a very good team in front of everyone's eyes, and they're being overlooked because G.S. knocked off Dallas.
Utah deserves a lot of credit for coming back from 2-0. Deron Williams is becoming a star, and so is Boozer.
After that series with Houston, people now realize that Boozer is a more effective inside player than Yao.
Houston just isn't that good a team yet, asides from McGrady, they don't have enough talent at any position to compete with the elite or near elite teams in the league. Even if Van Gundy wasn't there, they still wouldn't be good enough. You could put Larry Brown there, and he's still take several years to assemble a decent team in Houston.