Yao Ming's Retirement Will Hurt NBA More Than the Strike
The retirement of Yao Ming will be worse for the NBA in the long term than the current player strike. The NBA is betting heavily on China -- and Yao was a huge part of the gamble. (Even though we've known for weeks that Yao was out of here, today's announcement has dominated Chinese media.)
Yao was a big star in China long before coming to the NBA. He started playing with the Chinese Basketball Association's Shanghai Sharks and during the 2001 season he set CBA records by averaging of 32.4 points, 19 rebounds and 4.8 blocked shots per game, as well as leading China to the gold medal in the FIBA Asian Championship.
In 2002 the Houston Rockets made him the top pick in the NBA draft and Yao's celebrity increased exponentially both in and beyond the world's largest consumer market. Like Pele, Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan and few others, Yao became a truly world-wide star.
Why the Chinese started shooting hoops
Usually, it's just irritating when someone is declared the first (racial characteristic/gender/nationality) to do something. In Yao's case, though, the fact that someone from China was picked ahead of every other American available -- in a sport the U.S. invented and dominated -- meant a lot to his countrymen and women. Interest in basketball and the NBA exploded in China, where the game had had some popularity before but never the intense devotion of the true fan.
It didn't hurt that Yao proved to be as gracious off the court as he was on it. Even before he mastered English, he showed a warm and fun loving personality in public. It also helped that his skills more than lived up to the hype. Before injuries cut short his career, he was the rare big man (7' 3" if you believe Yao, 7' 6" if you believe NBA press kits) who could both play defense and score from the outside as well as from near the basket. He was an eight-time NBA All Star and lead the Rockets to the playoffs in three seasons.
While the NBA now has other Chinese players, none of them have been notable in any way. (Do the names Yi Jianlian or Sun Yue ring a bell? Don't feel bad. I had to look them up too.) NBA commissioner David Stern knows exactly how much the league has lost. He said Yao "provided an extraordinary bridge between basketball fans in the United States and China."
Although basketball is bigger than it used to be in the Middle Kingdom, it is still the outsider in the battle for fan attention. Comments like those of Liu Xiaojing, an IT engineer in Virginia, should particularly worry Stern:
"I have followed every game of the Rockets since Yao joined the team. Without Yao, the Rockets suck."Lots of sports have come back from crippling labor strikes, but never when they weren't the home team.
Image: Wiki Commons
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