Adrian Wojnarowski reports that Yao is set to retire rather than attempt a comeback.
Yao Ming, one of the seminal figures in the globalization of the NBA, has decided to retire after eight injury-plagued seasons with the Houston Rockets, league sources told Yahoo! Sports.
I’m a Rockets fan and was thrilled when Houston used the No. 1 overall draft pick in 2002 to select the 7′6″ Chinese center. After a promising first few seasons when he was teamed up with Tracy McGrady, injuries began to pile up for the pair of All-Stars. Yao has played more than 60 games in a season only once since the ‘04-05 NBA campaign. And the team advanced past the first round of the playoffs only once in Yao’s career.
It remains to be seen if Yao paves the way for closer ties between the NBA and China. David Stern has long sough to make inroads for the American game in the world’s most populous nation, and Yao certainly helped that. One of the most-watched NBA games in history was a ho-hum affair between the Rockets and the Milwaukee Bucks, when Yi Jianlian was playing for the latter club. Yao was a continual feature of the NBA All-Star Game due to massive Chinese influence on the fan voting process.
Jianlian’s perception as a bust (to this point; he’s still young and could turn it around) might hurt the prospects of NBA teams investing heavily in Chinese players that aren’t physical outliers like Yao was. His legacy in the United States will be as a skilled big man who could have been great if his feet didn’t fail him. But his legacy in China could serve as the gateway drug for NBA expansion into Asia. And in the long run, the latter might be far more important.