Yao's career in jeopardy

[Gamechanger]

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=aw-yaorockets062909&prov=yhoo&type=lgns


As the NBA draft approached, the grim truth about Yao Ming’s broken left foot hung like an anvil over the Houston Rockets. The fear isn’t that he’s just lost for next season, but longer.

The Rockets and Yao’s reps are frightened over his future, and the concern is the most base of all: Does Yao Ming ever play again?

“The realization has hit them that this is grave,” one NBA general manager said.


For now, the Rockets have privately told league peers it could be a full season before Yao might be able to return to basketball. Multiple league executives, officials close to Yao and two doctors with knowledge of the diagnoses are describing a troubling re-fracture of his navicular bone. Three pins were inserted a year ago, but the foot cracked in the playoffs and isn’t healing.


“It sounds like he’s missing most of next season, if not the entire 82 games,” one league executive who has had recent discussions with the Houston front office told Yahoo! Sports. “That’s all that [the Rockets] will concede quietly, but they know it’s probably much worse.”

Houston general manager Daryl Morey refused comment on Monday and a team spokesman said the Rockets will not have further comment until Yao undergoes additional medical tests.

There’s no reason for the Rockets to disclose the severity of the injury, nor the uncertainty over Yao’s future. Before the Rockets go public with a dire diagnosis, they plan to send him to three more specialists this week, a source said. For now, the Rockets have season tickets and sponsorships to sell. For now, the Rockets will publicly decry these doomsday revelations as premature, but this is the reality that they’re working under within the organization.

This has turned into an impossible situation for the Rockets’ capable GM. Even if Yao plays again, Morey knows it’s just a matter of time until his lower body breaks down. His feet and ankles just can’t support the mobility of his 7-foot-6 frame.

With four surgeries in three years, the Rockets worried they were reaching a breaking point. Well, it’s here. After missing 86 games in the previous three seasons, the 28-year-old Yao missed a mere five this past regular season before injuring his foot during the Rockets’ second-round playoff series against the Los Angeles Lakers.


It wasn’t until last week when Houston issued a statement saying Yao’s fractured foot hadn’t healed properly, that he would be unavailable “indefinitely.” Prior to Thursday’s draft, Morey tried desperately to trade into the high lottery to take Spanish prodigy Ricky Rubio(notes). Houston needed a young star, but had too few assets to make a deal with Memphis or Sacramento. It seemed odd to teams that Houston had thrown Shane Battier(notes) and Aaron Brooks(notes) into offers within weeks of pushing the NBA champion Lakers to seven games in the Western Conference semifinals.


Now, the Rockets have tough decisions to make: Do they keep pushing Tracy McGrady(notes) and his expiring contract on the market or let the $22 million expire next summer? So far, Morey is getting offered bad contracts and junk talent for him. What’s more, does Houston re-sign Ron Artest(notes) to a $40 million-plus contract when contention is no longer viable? Why not create cap space for the summers of 2010 and 2011? Why not get younger now? Yao could opt out of his contract next summer, but odds are that Houston won’t be so fortunate.


The Rockets should do themselves a favor and just start over. That isn’t easy in a sophisticated and rabid NBA market like Houston, but what everyone long suspected has reached fruition: Yao and McGrady are no longer a faulty foundation, but a collapsed one. Houston needs to proceed with an understanding that they’re no longer chasing the Lakers, but beginning again.


Rest assured, Houston has long been fearful that Yao’s responsibilities to the Chinese national team were rapidly contributing to his breakdown, and perhaps they’ve finally been met. Yao wouldn’t have missed the Beijing Olympics for the world, but it was clear he wasn’t fully healed in those Games. The Rockets paid a price for his nationalism, his obligation and now the darkest fears are close to confirmation: It isn’t just a season on the brink for Yao Ming, but perhaps a career.



1st Mutumbo, then Yao, and we STILL have McGrady on the books

>_<

play for the 1st overall or closer

get a durable big man

back to rebuilding

[EMB6903]

just sad news... Yao is an amazing talent... probably the most skilled bigman in the NBA right now, just cant stay healthy being 7'6 trying to play 30 minutes a game for 82 games a year.... Lets hope he can heal properly... hes one of the most unique players ive ever seen play the game.

[OrangeHoof]

He showed a lot of heart in Game 1 of the LA series this year, shrugging off a knee-to-knee collision with Kobe Bryant and led the Rockets to an upset. That was the complete Yao that Houston fans had waited to see. But I've said for years that Yao and McGrady were too fragile to win a title and they needed to trade one or the other. Now, they may be wisest to unload both and start over.

Rocket fans will understand. I think many of them already know that they were on borrowed time.

[Benetto]

Sad news...I wish him a full recovery.

[dogfish]

sorry GC. . . .

[MasterShake]

That sucks. Yao is one of my favorite players, especially since he was on the Simpsons!

[Gamechanger]

and there goes signing Artest too i bet

[sneakers]

He is just like any other basketball player over 7'1", you have about 2 or 3 good years until they get an ankle/foot/knee injury and that's it.

[OrangeHoof]

Many people that large had unusual growth spurts that made bone formation more fragile. This was pretty much what ended Sam Bowie's career.

[Denver Native (Carol)]

http://www.oregonlive.com/sports/oregonian/john_canzano/index.ssf/2009/07/canzano_china_runs_yao_into_th.html

The Chinese government turned him into a science project. They monitored Yao Ming's birth. They gave him the best nutrition, training and instruction.

He became the face of China's national basketball team. He never missed a practice, or a tournament, and why should he? Yao represented the hopes of a billion-plus people.

The Houston Rockets confirmed Tuesday that Yao's recovery from a broken foot is behind schedule, and the team doctor raised the possibility that the 7-foot-6 center would miss the entire season.

His career could be over, even.

Think about that today, and also consider what Yao's patriotism might have cost him. Because in an attempt to engineer the world's greatest center, the Chinese sports machine broke him down and ran him into the ground.

He broke a leg. He's broken his foot twice. He's battled a toe infection. During the Blazers-Rockets series, he spent the postgame with his feet in buckets of ice, wincing and staring at his swollen toes.

His body has been abused, and maybe part of this is because the game has never seen a big man who came with Yao's package of size and skill. But if we're doling out responsibility, you can't ignore the way China wore him out. That includes the exhausting psychological task of carrying a country -- a legacy that was thrust upon him.

China is a face-saving country. During the Olympics, it became clear that the nation has a bizarre inferiority-superiority complex. It's a nation that is desperate for world acceptance. It wants you to like it and respect it and take it seriously.

This is a nation that has thousands of years of cultural influence and rich history. Also, it has 1.3 billion people, and loves to remind you.

It also has Yao.

When I arrived in Beijing for the Olympics, the first thing I saw wasn't a mural of Chairman Mao or the beauty of the Forbidden City, but rather a giant billboard featuring the nation's No.1 athlete. It was Yao, acting ambassador, inviting the world to China's grand event.

Yao gave too much of himself to China. Patriotism is admirable and inspiring, but Yao's country turned the deal one-sided and didn't afford him the rest he deserved. And maybe he realizes this now after facing a crumbling career and injuries that can't seem to heal. He delivered on his end of the bargain, and in response, his nation demanded more of him.

Now, he's facing an uncertain future.

Nicolas Batum and Rudy Fernandez will play for their countries in the European Championships. LaMarcus Aldridge, Greg Oden and Jerryd Bayless will work out with Team USA.

But when I heard about Yao, I thought about Brandon Roy. Because as hard as the Blazers' star guard plays during the season, as much of himself that he gives to the organization, he disappears in the offseason.

He doesn't return phone messages. He doesn't show up at the practice facility. Team representatives have a difficult time tracking Roy, because he uses the time to decompress and recover. And there's something to be said for it.

Roy turned down an opportunity to participate in USA Basketball this summer. I hardly think China would have allowed Yao the same luxury, and I'm convinced a break was what the center needed.

- John Canzano: JohnCanzano@aol.com

[OrangeHoof]

I'm convinced a break was what the center needed.


Poor choice of words there.

[Denver Native (Carol)]

http://www.nba.com/2009/news/07/03/yao.injury.ap/index.html

BEIJING (AP) -- Houston Rockets All-Star center Yao Ming will have to wait up to a week before he knows whether he will need surgery on his broken left foot.

The future of 7-foot-6 (226-centimeter) Yao are in question amid reports from the team doctor that the hairline fracture in his foot could keep him out of all of next season, and potentially end his career.

"It hasn't been decided yet," Yao's agent, Eric Zhang, told The Associated Press on Friday. "He is still in the process of group consultations of doctors holding different opinions and different plans. The result of the consultations is due within a week."

Before that there is no way of telling whether surgery will be performed, Zhang said.

"We are still in the information gathering period," he said.

Yao sustained a hairline fracture of the tarsal navicular bone late in a May 8 playoff game against the Los Angeles Lakers. The Rockets said last week that the injury has not healed and he was out indefinitely.

Yao played in 77 regular-season games in 2008-09, his most injury-free year since 2004-05, when he played in 80. Before last season, Yao missed chunks of the previous three seasons with leg and foot injuries.

In 2006-07, Yao missed 32 games after breaking his right leg. He suffered a stress fracture in his left foot in 2007-08, underwent surgery and sat out 26 games.

Yao is due to make more than $16 million next season, with a player option for 2010-11 that would pay him more than $17 million.

The uncertainties come at a bad time for Houston, with Rockets forward Ron Artest verbally agreeing on Thursday to join Kobe Bryant and the NBA champion Lakers.

David Bauman, Artest's agent, told The Associated Press the final details are still being worked out. ESPN.com reported Artest had agreed to a three-year deal worth $18 million. Bauman would not confirm those numbers, saying the deal was still being negotiated.

The Rockets envisioned Artest, acquired in a trade with Sacramento last summer, as the final piece to a "Big Three" with Yao and Tracy McGrady, but those two All-Stars are now dealing with long-term injuries.

Houston already knows it will be missing McGrady for the bulk of next season as he recovers from microfracture surgery on his left knee.

[Denver Native (Carol)]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=4336553

Houston Rockets center Yao Ming has elected to have extensive surgery on his fractured left foot that almost certainly eliminates his chances of playing next season but offers hope that he can resume his NBA career and not fracture the foot a career-ending third time.

After consultation with a battery of doctors, Yao, 28, has decided to undergo a bone graft to heal the existing fracture and have his arch surgically lowered to reduce the stress on his foot.

Cavaliers center Zydrunas Ilgauskas had a fracture in the same part of the foot, had a similar combination of surgeries and has played the last eight seasons without suffering another fracture.

Yao has broken the foot twice, most recently last May in Game 3 of Houston's second-round playoff battle with the eventual champions, the Lakers.

It was originally hoped the fracture would heal with rest and Yao would be back for training camp, but a check-up in June revealed the fracture had not improved.

Yao spoke with Ilgauskas before making his decision and was encouraged by what Ilgauskas told him.

"I am confident that the path I have chosen is the best one," Yao said. "I know I have a lot of work ahead of me before I can be back on the court, and I am committed to do whatever I can to make my recovery 100 percent successful. I have full confidence I'll play again."

The surgery will be performed next week by Dr. Tom Clanton, one of the Rockets' team physicians. If all goes well, Yao said he could begin rehabilitation "a couple weeks" after surgery and could return to basketball activity in six months.

The Rockets said Friday there is no timetable set for the return of the 7-foot-6 Yao, a seven-time All Star, but that he is "expected to be available for the team's training camp in 2010." That camp is in October -- 16 months away.

"This combination of procedures should not only allow healing of his navicular stress fracture, but also improve the mechanics of his foot to reduce the stress on that bone and give him the best long-term prognosis," Clanton said in a statement.

The decision for surgery was expected. The Rockets applied for a disabled player exception from the NBA a few weeks ago, betting that their center will miss next season as he recovers. The NBA agreed that Yao's return is unlikely and approved the request, freeing up about $5.7 million that the Rockets used to sign free agent Trevor Ariza from the Lakers.

Houston has also scrambled to find a center since free agency began and this week acquired 6-foot-11 David Andersen in a trade with Atlanta.

Yao has been consulting with doctors since late June, when the Rockets said he would be out indefinitely.

He suffered a hairline fracture in the foot in a playoff game on May 3 and the team initially said Yao would miss only eight to 12 weeks. When doctors re-examined the injury about seven weeks later, they discovered that the injury had not healed and amended the prognosis.

Yao started 77 games in 2008-09, his most injury-free season since 2004-05, when he played in 80.

He sat out one game in November with soreness in the foot, but didn't have another problem with it until the playoffs. He led the Rockets past Portland in the first round -- Houston's first playoff series win since 1997 -- before hurting his foot late in Game 3 of the second round against the Los Angeles Lakers.

Yao said two days later that the injury wasn't as severe as other ones and that he wasn't overly concerned. He had missed the last 26 games of the 2007-08 with a stress fracture in the same foot. He had pins inserted and rushed his rehab to play in the Beijing Olympics.

Yao is due to make about $16 million next season and holds the option of returning to the Rockets for 2009-10. General manager Daryl Morey called Yao the "cornerstone" of the franchise before the team changed Yao's prognosis in June.

Yao recently purchased his former team, the financially troubled Shanghai Sharks, but said this week that was not an indication that he was planning an early retirement.

"I do not have any plans to retire and my doctors and I are very confident that I can fully recover and return to the stadium; the team and the acquisition has nothing to do with my injury," Yao said in an interview Friday with Xinhua.

Houston drafted Yao with the No. 1 overall pick in 2002. He averaged 13.5 points and 8.2 rebounds as a rookie and quickly established himself as a perennial All-Star.

The injury issues began in the 2005-06 season, when he sat out 21 games with an infection in his left big toe. He broke a bone in his left foot near the end of that season and had surgery.

Yao then broke his right leg early in the 2006-07 season and missed 32 games, then suffered the stress fracture in his left foot in 2007-08.

The latest injury likely drops the Rockets out of contention next season.

Houston acquired Tracy McGrady in June 2004 and envisioned the two-time scoring champion joining Yao in a devastating inside-out threat. The Rockets went 146-74 when Yao and McGrady played together, but it happened so rarely over five seasons that it never mattered in the end.

McGrady ran into as many injuries as Yao. He underwent microfracture surgery on his left knee in February and was expected to miss up to 12 months. His contract expires after next season.

The Rockets acquired forward Ron Artest last summer with the hope of creating a "Big 3" that would vault Houston into championship contention. But now McGrady and Yao are out for months to come and Artest bolted for the Lakers a few weeks ago.

[Overtime]

bummer to hear for sure, but I never thought he was really all that good. To my knowledge he's never won an MVP, and he's never played for a title. Bigger isn't always better, and this should be a lesson for all NBA Teams who go out and try to find "the biggest" player they can get.

[EMB6903]

bummer to hear for sure, but I never thought he was really all that good. To my knowledge he's never won an MVP, and he's never played for a title. Bigger isn't always better, and this should be a lesson for all NBA Teams who go out and try to find "the biggest" player they can get.

You have no Idea what you are talking about then... because Yao is as skilled of a bigman as Ive ever seen.... just has battled injuries his entire career

easily has been a top 3 center since hes been in the league

[Overtime]

You have no Idea what you are talking about then... because Yao is as skilled of a bigman as Ive ever seen.... just has battled injuries his entire career

easily has been a top 3 center since hes been in the league

but he's always hurt, so you can't be Top 3 when that happens....and yes I've seen him play and honestly when you're 7' whatever, and you let Kobe go over you and rain 3's on you all day, you're not that great. Kobe schooled him so many times in the playoffs, when all Yao had to do was put a hand up.

Yao is and always will be overrated just because of his size.

[EMB6903]

but he's always hurt, so you can't be Top 3 when that happens....and yes I've seen him play and honestly when you're 7' whatever, and you let Kobe go over you and rain 3's on you all day, you're not that great. Kobe schooled him so many times in the playoffs, when all Yao had to do was put a hand up.

Yao is and always will be overrated just because of his size.

how does Kobe drain 3's on yao when Centers arent even suppose to come out and guard the 3 point ball, esspecially if its against one of the top perimeter players in the league

Yao is a center and Kobe is a perimeter player... they were not matched up on eachother 1 time that entire series. Yao did outplay both Bynum and Gasol before he went down with an injury during that series.

He does get hurt too much though.. but playing in this league while being 7'6 has to put you at an injury risk. Hes still as good as any center in this league, Howard might be more of a defensive force but isnt close to as talented offensively as Yao, dudes 7'6 and can hit 20 ft jumpers on a consistent basis and his back to the basket game is unguardable... Hes an amazing talent

[NameUsedBefore]

Too much strain.

He was doing NBA and then when the seasons were over he'd be playing in China.

Like one article said, he was driven into the ground. The Earl Campbell of basketball.