Yao could be out for entire next season or longer

[Dirkenstien]

This has to be a terrible situation for the Rockets organization. Yao's career could be in jeopardy.

Link:http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slu...yhoo&type=lgns

Rockets could lose Yao for season—or longer
By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports
1 hour, 1 minute ago

As the NBA draft approached, the grim truth about Yao Ming’s(notes) 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 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.

[TheMaverick]

crazy stuff.

I hate the Rockets, but if this is true... that really sucks for them.

[92bDad]

I just read that on twitter...Prayers go out to Yao, the Rockets and the friends and fans.

The Gentle Giant appears to be a great person and a true ambasadore for not only the sport of Basketball, but the nation of China.

[Itachi]

That's a shame. Yao's size really comes at a price.

[grndmstr_c]

Sucks for Yao. Where do the Rockets go from here? Or perhaps more importantly, where does Artest go from here?

[sefant77]

Rockets are in re build, they offered Battier for Rubio.

Pretty sure they dont pay off Artest.

[TheMaverick]

Artest needs to get out of Houston and go to Dallas.

That would make the offseason all worth it for me.

4 years / 28 million

Do it.

[craggmac]

Originally Posted by TheMaverick

Artest needs to get out of Houston and go to Dallas.

That would make the offseason all worth it for me.

4 years / 28 million

Do it.

I'll see your Artest and I'll raise you a Sheed.

[Flacolaco]

So if he can't play, can 1 billion Chinese people still have him start the All-Star game?

[TheMaverick]

Originally Posted by craggmac

I'll see your Artest and I'll raise you a Sheed.

why not both?
MLE on one, SnT on the other.

[sefant77]

Morey is a great GM but he did such a major mistake not trading McLady to Detroit for that great package.

They knew Yao will always miss games over his career and that they have a 2nd star that was missing more and more games himself.

Rockets fans always whined about their "bad luck" but guess: You dont built your team around 2 injury prones. Yao they couldnt trade because of his financial impact so they should have shipped out McGradys ass long time ago for value.

[TheMaverick]

great post

[Dirkenstien]

Artest could seriously be an option now. Will probably take a S&T because of the money he'll want and Houston will want some pieces to begin rebuilding. It's possible we could pry him away with the MLE, but I wouldn't bet on it. If so then that's a huge success and we can focus using Stack + etc assets on a big man.

[TheMaverick]

I agree, just get Artest here... MLE, SnT, money under the table, anything.

[GermanDunk]

Originally Posted by Flacolaco

So if he can't play, can 1 billion Chinese people still have him start the All-Star game?

Wasnt that Xlinlian Lang or so. But he. Yao has a lot of class.

[dalmations202]

Battier interests me almost as much as Artest does.

He is solid, and doesn't lose games for you.

[jthig32]

I realize this is an extreme circumstance, but all you people pining for Kaman, you remember this. There are examples throughout NBA history of feet problems plaguing seven footers and stripping them of their ability. Even a less severe case like Rik Smits left him essentially a jump shooter late in his career.

Just remember, feet on giants are important and fragile.

[jthig32]

Originally Posted by dalmations202

Battier interests me almost as much as Artest does.

He is solid, and doesn't lose games for you.

Battier would actually interest me far more than Artest.

But I don't think he could be had in a salary dump.

[mavs777]

Originally Posted by craggmac

I'll see your Artest and I'll raise you a Sheed.

Artest is twice the player sheed is, he is washed up and past him prime no thanks on him

[mavs777]

I agree on battier but we would have to then get a scoring center like kaman or bosh, not gortat

[Underdog]

[Dirkadirkastan]

It's not so much that the injuries themselves are funny, but rather their fans' insistence that the entire team could remain healthy through two months of playoffs.

[sefant77]

And that remembers me always what a freaking iron man dirk is...or gummi man

[badfish22]

Im I the only one that thinks Rasheed Wallace as our starting center would be terrible?

[DubOverdose]

I feel bad for Yao, but there aren't many teams I'd rather see crippled

[Underdog]

Originally Posted by DubOverdose

I feel bad for Yao, but there aren't many teams I'd rather see crippled

this.

[BGMaverick9]

If he's done, that is a shame but I think he'll consider it a relatively successful career even though it was cut short. It's not his fault he grew to be so tall. But making a huge splash in the NBA, being a world-wide superstar and being the poster-child for this past Olympics...that's pretty special.

But it does stink for him if it's all over.

[Nowitzki4President]

Awesome!

It is a shame though, because I like Yao as a person. But as a player (Against the Mavs), I can't stand him.

[rabbitproof]

That sucks. I remember the way he kept playing (gimping around) even after injured as they were going down in that game.

Hope his career isn't done.

[TheMaverick]

Originally Posted by mavs777

Artest is twice the player sheed is, he is washed up and past him prime no thanks on him

I think Artest is an amazing player. But, Sheed is no slacker either. He is not washed up, he brings different skillsets to the table than from Artest.

[Sportstudi]

Originally Posted by Flacolaco

So if he can't play, can 1 billion Chinese people still have him start the All-Star game?

They will vote for him, if the panel puts him on that list. That's for sure. If the people who make that list think he might be able to recover until then, he's definitely among the candidates.

[Sportstudi]

Originally Posted by BGMaverick9

If he's done, that is a shame but I think he'll consider it a relatively successful career even though it was cut short. It's not his fault he grew to be so tall. But making a huge splash in the NBA, being a world-wide superstar and being the poster-child for this past Olympics...that's pretty special.

But it does stink for him if it's all over.

True.

[mcsluggo]

It is hard to dislike Yao... i hope for the best for him

[horse900703]

Such a bad news for the rockets. What are they going to do with T-mac next season?
No Yao or T-mac~

[TheMaverick]

and he deserves to be voted on as starter... he brings in the most money out of anyone in the league...

[clutch#41]

yao to have surgery!!
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=4336553

[EricaLubarsky]

Originally Posted by TheMaverick

and he deserves to be voted on as starter... he brings in the most money out of anyone in the league...

plus 1.3billion fans