Yao done already??

[Go For Tree]

This has a huge impact on the entire Southwest division. Even the whole league.

Rockets could lose Yao for season, if not longer
By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports
1 hour, 17 minutes ago

Buzz up!93 votes PrintMore From Adrian WojnarowskiDraft buzz: Trading game Jun 25, 2009 Magic agree to acquire Nets' Carter Jun 25, 2009
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 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

[bdictjames]

Rockets are done too.

[DesignatedT]

wow. that sucks

[coyotes_geek]

I feel for Yao, but we all knew this was coming. Has there ever been a guy anything close to Yao's size who didn't have a career plagued by foot problems?

[EricB]

Shame for Yao, he's a class guy, a hard worker, and a just a plain good overall person and the good guys don't deserve this kind of luck.

[tmtcsc]

That really sucks for Houston. What a shame. I like the Rockets against anyone but us. It's not like a Dallas deal. That team is worthless.

[Tully365]

Yao has been such a class act and a worldwide ambassador for NBA basketball. I hope he can come back from this.

[timvp]

Damn, that sucks for Yao. He's a good guy and deserves better.

[anonoftheinternets]

tough luck houston. but in a weird way, may be the best for the fans atleast they can rebuild now ... too many years lost to injury ...

[wildbill2u]

Not only does it suck for Houston, Stern must be ready to slit his wrists. Just when the league was making great strides into the largest market in the world--China--because of Yao, the NBA's major Chinese attraction goes down.

And for all those Houston players, goodbye to endorsement side-deals with Chinese companies that made playing for the Rockets so attractive.

[poop]

Shame for Yao, he's a class guy, a hard worker, and a just a plain good overall person and the good guys don't deserve this kind of luck.

agree with you on this one

[Spursmania]

This is really devastating news for Yao and the Rockets. Nobody deserves to go down like that, least of all Yao who according to most people was a pretty humble, nice and a generous guy. Sorry Rockets...

[coyotes_geek]

Not only does it suck for Houston, Stern must be ready to slit his wrists. Just when the league was making great strides into the largest market in the world--China--because of Yao, the NBA's major Chinese attraction goes down.

And for all those Houston players, goodbye to endorsement side-deals with Chinese companies that made playing for the Rockets so attractive.

Good point about China. Stern can't be liking this one bit. Especially when compounded by the fact that the early returns on Yi Jianlian's career are showing that he was incredibly over-hyped.

[admiralfats]

well, all the players who go over to china say that the people there are huge nba fans at this point and know about all of the players. of course with yao still playing the attraction would stay higher, but people there who got hooked on the nba will stay hooked you'd think.

[Malice]

Amazes me that Shaq, who is comparable in size has played relatively injury free all the way up to this point in his career. Sucks if this is true. One of the few good guys in the league.

[barbacoataco]

Shaq is a marvel in terms of the way his body has held up. Kareem had amazing health throughout his career. But these guys are the one-in-a-million freaks of nature who have 7 ft. bodies that can hold up over continuous 81 game seasons.

[TampaDude]

this is really devastating news for yao and the rockets. Nobody deserves to go down like that, least of all yao who according to most people was a pretty humble, nice and a generous guy. Sorry rockets...

+1

[Slomo]

Shame for Yao, he's a class guy, a hard worker, and a just a plain good overall person and the good guys don't deserve this kind of luck.

Yep. +1

[barbacoataco]

Also, if Yao is gone, and now that Shaq is in the East, the SPurs don't have that many legit bigs in the Western Conference to deal with. But if they really want a championship they will still have to get by either Gasol/Bynum, or eventually Howard or Shaq in the Finals.

[phyzik]

Sucks for Yao but thats one less contender we have to worry about.

[easjer]

I feel badly for true Rockets fans. The Rox gritted it out against the Lakers on pure heart, and had Yao's foot been a non-issue, this could have been an exciting season for them. Now it's all confusion and no clear direction at this point. I thought their buying out several second rounders for cash considerations was odd on draft night, but it makes sense as a bigger piece of the wtf do we do now puzzle.

Yao is not one of my favorite players on the court, but I have a great deal of respect for him as a person, so this is awful news.

[Libri]

That's very unfortunate for the Rockets and it must be tough for Yao.

[bigdog]

I'm relieved as a Spurs fan, because it is one less big we have to worry about in the West, but at the same time, you gotta feel sorry for the Rockets. This really sucks for them if he's going to be out for a long time, if not, forever.

[TampaDude]

I'm relieved as a Spurs fan, because it is one less big we have to worry about in the West, but at the same time, you gotta feel sorry for the Rockets. This really sucks for them if he's going to be out for a long time, if not, forever.

My sentiments exactly. :toast

[Indazone]

I think the best we can hope for is a complete recovery for Yao in 2011 and he comes back strong and we completely tank this next season and get a high draft pick so we can do what you guys did when you got Duncan.

[Mugen]

that sucks for Yao, hope he gets better and plays sometime next season. hes a good player and seems like a good person overall.

i blame bad luck, his massive frame, and the chinese govt. forcing him to play almost every summer for the natl team.

[duncan228]

I feel bad for Yao, the team and the fans. I don't like to see any player go out with injury. Hope he can make a full recovery and play again.

[TampaDude]

I think the best we can hope for is a complete recovery for Yao in 2011 and he comes back strong and we completely tank this next season and get a high draft pick so we can do what you guys did when you got Duncan.

Yup...if Yao is out, go for the tank and start fresh. :toast

[Indazone]

Yao Ming and the froghopper
2009 MAY 12
tags: basketball analytics, froghopper, scaling, Yao Ming
by gravityandlevity
Just a few days after a tough and inspiring performance against the Lakers, Yao Ming is injured again, with a stress fracture in his foot. Lakers coach Phil Jackson commented on Yao’s fragility by saying “A person in physics once told me if man was 60 feet tall, the first step he’d take, he’d completely crumble … Gravity’s a bitch.”

But is it true? Certainly larger people have heavier bodies, but they also have thicker bones and larger muscles. So why are tall people more prone to injury? This post examines that question using one of the simplest and most powerful ideas in physics: the scaling argument. I will also try to make a prediction for the “injury prone-ness” of a person as a function of their height.

Before I get to Yao Ming, allow me to discuss a simple example using what is arguably the best athlete in the animal kingdom: the froghopper. The froghopper is a little insect, barely half a centimeter long, but it has about a 27″ vertical jump. That’s about 140 times its own body length, so in a certain sense it would be like me jumping 840 vertical feet. Pretty impressive. But if we put the froghopper in an enlarging ray, and blew it up 365 times so that it was the same size as me, would it really be able to jump 840 feet?

The answer is no. That’s because an object’s weight is proportional to its body volume, which is proportional to the cube of its size. So making the froghopper 365 times larger would make it million times heavier. The froghopper’s ability to jump depends on the volume of its muscles, which also increase by times after it gets put through the enlarging ray. So the ability of the froghopper to jump remains the same: it gets a lot stronger, but also proportionally heavier. Therefore, a 6-foot froghopper could jump the same height as a half-centimer froghopper: 27 inches. It just looks much less impressive.

Now let’s think about Yao Ming, who is sort of like a normal person put through an enlarging ray. The propensity for one of Yao’s bones to fracture depends on the stress he puts on them. Stress can be defined as weight divided by cross-sectional area. So if weight depends on volume (size^3) and the cross-sectional area of his poor foot bones depends on size^2, then the stress grows as (volume / area) = (size^3 / size^2), or in other words, the stress increases directly with size. You can think of it this way: by virtue of his great height, Yao’s bones are about 1.7 times thicker than the average person’s, but he weighs about 2.2 times more. Thus, his bones have a harder time than yours do.

So how much more likely is he to get injured than the average man (height 5′8″) ? Well, there are people out there who break bones for a living and have addressed this very question. They found that the frequency of stress fracture in bone grows as the stress it is under to the power 0.06. Putting together their conclusions, along with the observation that Yao gets some kind of stress fracture every year or so, we can estimate how many years it would take for athletes of various heights to come down with a stress fracture:

http://gravityandlevity.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/stress_fractures.png?w=600&h=450

Of course, this chart is just a general prediction and is not meant to be completely accurate. Some people will be hardier than others, and those people tend to be athletes (no stress fractures yet for a 7′1″ Shaquille O’Neal). But the shape is important. It suggests that if you’re under 6 feet tall (hooray, most of the world!) there is really not much risk of a stress fracture. You can have a 20-year career as an athlete without too much worry. But for those above 7 feet tall, your chance of a fracture is about 10 times greater than for your 6-foot brethren.

So finally, was Phil Jackson right about the collapse of a 60 foot man? Actually, by my estimate, he was quite conservative. As far as I can tell, a 16′3″ man would fracture his tibia the first time he took a step.

There is a sad and interesting footnote to this story. The depressing far-right side of the graph above corresponds to the 8′11″ Robert Wadlow, the tallest man in recorded history who suffered from an overactive pituitary gland. By his late teens he was already incapable of walking without leg braces, and he continued to grow until his death at age 22.

What the Rockets have got to do assuming he can recover from this latest injury is severely limit his playing time and at the same time, they have got to limit his salary so they can go sign another impact center. Looking at this graph, he will be injury prone for his entire career.

[SpursWench21]

Shame for Yao, he's a class guy, a hard worker, and a just a plain good overall person and the good guys don't deserve this kind of luck.

+1 :depressedYao has been one of my favorite non-Spur players for a few years now. A good guy like this def. deserves better. sorry to hear this, houston and i hope it all works out whichever way your team decides to go. Get better soon Yao!

[Indazone]

Well Shawn Bradley was injury prone too but at least he didn't have to play as many minutes as Yao.

[velik_m]

This sucks. :td

[Indazone]

Yao is much better than Shawn but they are nearly the same height that's all.

[Parker2112]

I wouldn't count this team out if I were you guys. They have shown a lot of fight on the court without T-Mac or Yao. When Yao went down against the Lakers everyone expected them to fold, yet they still put up a much better fight than many other teams could have injury free.

[45 bank shot]

tough luck for both Yao and Hoston. HOpe Yao get better soon

[buttsR4rebounding]

It is the curse of Tracy McGrady. Trade his sorry butt and Yao's foot will magically heal.

[coyotes_geek]

I wouldn't count this team out if I were you guys. They have shown a lot of fight on the court without T-Mac or Yao. When Yao went down against the Lakers everyone expected them to fold, yet they still put up a much better fight than many other teams could have injury free.

One thing to put up some fight for a couple goames. Another to sustain that over an 82 game season.

[xellos88330]

It is such a damn shame. Hope it isn't as bad as they are making it sound.

[superbigtime]

Just awful news. His body is just too much for those ankles. Does not sound promising. He is young though, so maybe he could be gtg the following year. But a reinjury or new injury is inevitable. Sorry Yao. At least half the world adores you, that's not so bad.

[Parker2112]

One thing to put up some fight for a couple goames. Another to sustain that over an 82 game season.

Or over the longest winning streak in NBA history?

[Parker2112]

Make that second longest (had to check the stats). Regardless it spanned more than a quarter of the season, just for a little perspective...

[completely deck]

Tough luck for the Rockets. Hopefully he can play soon.

[lefty]

yao has been such a class act and a worldwide ambassador for nba basketball. I hope he can come back from this.
+1

[BillMc]

Yao's a good guy and hard worker. It's really too bad to see him become Rick Smits two! I hope he gets well.

Note to Manu: See what all that international play every summer does to a career!

[Spurs Brazil]

That sucks for Yao

I hope he can get better soon

[Harry Callahan]

Tanking is less of a viable option when the overall roster of good players might still be good enough to make the playoffs as a lower seed if McGrady and Artest come back.

Being mediocre is not where you want to be though because you have no chance of getting the trophy if you are Houston. Yao deserves better.

[newacc]

I think it speaks to what kind of person Yao is that everybody is pulling for him. I hope he can continue his career because he was starting to get really good. Lakers might not be kissing the trophy without him going down. Also + for him refusing to go out with injury that one game.

[bigfan]

Bummer for Yao (and the Houston fans). He seems to have his heart in the right place, plays hard and has made pretty good strides learning english ect... Im thinking his bone structure just aint cut out for the NBA haul but I hope Im wrong. Hes a clean player and I do hope he gets better.

[mookie2001]

dam i hate the shit out of foreign players but yao is one who isnt a pussy

wish him the best

[Mr. Body]

Yao is a good dude and it is deeply unfortunate this happens to him.

Why doesn't this shit ever happen to Kobe?

[Kamnik]

Damn, that sucks for Yao. He's a good guy and deserves better.

Agreed... One of my favourite NBA players :depressed

[clubalien]

in a way i wonder if this is good for yao. Maybe he won't be under so much pressure by china officials that he will be retiring

[Mavs<Spurs]

Shame for Yao, he's a class guy, a hard worker, and a just a plain good overall person and the good guys don't deserve this kind of luck.

Class post by EricB. I couldn't say it any better and since he shared my sentiments so precisely, I might as well quote him.

:depressed

[bigdog]

It should be guys like Garnett or Kobe that have this kinda luck.

[Mavs<Spurs]

Yao Ming and the froghopper
2009 MAY 12
tags: basketball analytics, froghopper, scaling, Yao Ming
by gravityandlevity
Just a few days after a tough and inspiring performance against the Lakers, Yao Ming is injured again, with a stress fracture in his foot. Lakers coach Phil Jackson commented on Yao’s fragility by saying “A person in physics once told me if man was 60 feet tall, the first step he’d take, he’d completely crumble … Gravity’s a bitch.”

But is it true? Certainly larger people have heavier bodies, but they also have thicker bones and larger muscles. So why are tall people more prone to injury? This post examines that question using one of the simplest and most powerful ideas in physics: the scaling argument. I will also try to make a prediction for the “injury prone-ness” of a person as a function of their height.

Before I get to Yao Ming, allow me to discuss a simple example using what is arguably the best athlete in the animal kingdom: the froghopper. The froghopper is a little insect, barely half a centimeter long, but it has about a 27″ vertical jump. That’s about 140 times its own body length, so in a certain sense it would be like me jumping 840 vertical feet. Pretty impressive. But if we put the froghopper in an enlarging ray, and blew it up 365 times so that it was the same size as me, would it really be able to jump 840 feet?

The answer is no. That’s because an object’s weight is proportional to its body volume, which is proportional to the cube of its size. So making the froghopper 365 times larger would make it million times heavier. The froghopper’s ability to jump depends on the volume of its muscles, which also increase by times after it gets put through the enlarging ray. So the ability of the froghopper to jump remains the same: it gets a lot stronger, but also proportionally heavier. Therefore, a 6-foot froghopper could jump the same height as a half-centimer froghopper: 27 inches. It just looks much less impressive.

Now let’s think about Yao Ming, who is sort of like a normal person put through an enlarging ray. The propensity for one of Yao’s bones to fracture depends on the stress he puts on them. Stress can be defined as weight divided by cross-sectional area. So if weight depends on volume (size^3) and the cross-sectional area of his poor foot bones depends on size^2, then the stress grows as (volume / area) = (size^3 / size^2), or in other words, the stress increases directly with size. You can think of it this way: by virtue of his great height, Yao’s bones are about 1.7 times thicker than the average person’s, but he weighs about 2.2 times more. Thus, his bones have a harder time than yours do.

So how much more likely is he to get injured than the average man (height 5′8″) ? Well, there are people out there who break bones for a living and have addressed this very question. They found that the frequency of stress fracture in bone grows as the stress it is under to the power 0.06. Putting together their conclusions, along with the observation that Yao gets some kind of stress fracture every year or so, we can estimate how many years it would take for athletes of various heights to come down with a stress fracture:

http://gravityandlevity.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/stress_fractures.png?w=600&h=450

Of course, this chart is just a general prediction and is not meant to be completely accurate. Some people will be hardier than others, and those people tend to be athletes (no stress fractures yet for a 7′1″ Shaquille O’Neal). But the shape is important. It suggests that if you’re under 6 feet tall (hooray, most of the world!) there is really not much risk of a stress fracture. You can have a 20-year career as an athlete without too much worry. But for those above 7 feet tall, your chance of a fracture is about 10 times greater than for your 6-foot brethren.

So finally, was Phil Jackson right about the collapse of a 60 foot man? Actually, by my estimate, he was quite conservative. As far as I can tell, a 16′3″ man would fracture his tibia the first time he took a step.

There is a sad and interesting footnote to this story. The depressing far-right side of the graph above corresponds to the 8′11″ Robert Wadlow, the tallest man in recorded history who suffered from an overactive pituitary gland. By his late teens he was already incapable of walking without leg braces, and he continued to grow until his death at age 22.

What the Rockets have got to do assuming he can recover from this latest injury is severely limit his playing time and at the same time, they have got to limit his salary so they can go sign another impact center. Looking at this graph, he will be injury prone for his entire career.

nice post Indazone. I'm really sorry to hear about Yao. As you can tell, we love and respect the Hell out of Yao. He's a class person and a fantastic baller to boot. And Houston is a good franchise that I cheer for.

[coyotes_geek]

Or over the longest winning streak in NBA history?

Second longest, and still just a fraction of an 82 game season.

[galvatron3000]

I was concerned about this team next season but with no Yao ...sad

[4RINGS]

Too bad for the Rockets and Yao.

[YoMamaIsCallin]

another counterexample: Mark Eaton -- 7 foot 4, 290, played 10 good seasons and a couple with knee/back injuries, never a stress fracture or foot problems. He is still the record holder in blocks-per-game and is behind only Kareem in career blocks.

[team-work]

It's disheartening to hear about that. Get well Yao, take the time needed to heal & return at 100%.

[BackHome]

I fill sorry for the guy he is such a great ambasador for basketball and for China. But just look what playing in the summers does to players we only have to look at Manu so I fill your pain Rocket fans.

I hope that China will leave him alone and he can heal up and play for the 2011 season if not that would be a sad ending. He kinda reminds me of big Dave....

One question is how long is his contract and what do you all think Houston can or should do?

[Dex]

Sad for Yao, and for the league as a whole. It's a real bummer to see one of the leagues biggest stars (consider the astronomical number of Chinese fans blown away by these reports), and seemingly nicest guys go down like this. The worst part is, even if he were able to defy the odds and return from this injury, one has to wonder around what corner the next one would be lurking.

Best wishes to him, and the Rockets franchise. While some might find it nice to have another contender off the list, I never like to see it in this fashion.

Like Manut Bol, maybe there is just a point where the body is just...too big for the rigors of the sport.

Makes Dikembe Mutombo seem like a freak of nature for his durability, considering he was only running a few inches shorter.

[clubalien]

I would strongly be against this, because of it throwing records off. With more international play, the solution would be to make the nba season shorter. Therefore less games played less stress. I just cannot see it being done since less games is less money.

[raspsa]

Carrying the expectations of more than a billion Chinese on his shoulders have finally taken their toll.. really feel bad for Yao but only contempt for the Chinese Sports Authorities who never allowed him to fully heal when his body showed signs of breaking down years ago.

[Avitus1]

Sucks for Yao...

[wildbill2u]

I can't agree with the Spurs fans who think Yao going out means that the Spursdon't have to worry about the Rockets.

1. Without any picks, they went out with cash and got some pretty good picks. Morry as GM has really done a great job for them after leaving the Spurs.

2. They are gonna have to go out and buy a center free agent which is gonna drive the market price up for guys like Amare, Sheed, etc. They'll be desperate and won't care how much they have to spend or trade.

3. The talk on Houston radio is all about how they can drop the salary of T-Mac (22,000,000) and take a medical exception worth about $10,000,000 on Yao.

4. They are going to have to revamp the team under pressure and that is going to shake up the entire player market throughout the league.

[Phenomanul]

such a shame...

[lefty]

dam i hate the shit out of foreign players but yao is one who isnt a pussy

wish him the best
TP
Manu

[lefty]

Fuck The Lakers



We must hire their medical staff :pctoss

[coyotes_geek]

I can't agree with the Spurs fans who think Yao going out means that the Spursdon't have to worry about the Rockets.

1. Without any picks, they went out with cash and got some pretty good picks. Morry as GM has really done a great job for them after leaving the Spurs.

Those picks are both wing players. Houston didn't have a legit backup for Yao last season, and now without Yao they're one of the weakest front courts in the league. Scola, nice player, not a difference maker. Landry, nice player, not a difference maker. Hayes, a joke.


2. They are gonna have to go out and buy a center free agent which is gonna drive the market price up for guys like Amare, Sheed, etc. They'll be desperate and won't care how much they have to spend or trade.

They're going to have the same MLE to offer that everyone else has. Except Houston's mle belongs to a team that won't be a contender in 09-10.


3. The talk on Houston radio is all about how they can drop the salary of T-Mac (22,000,000) and take a medical exception worth about $10,000,000 on Yao.

Yao needs to be out a full calendar year before they can even apply for that exception. And even if they do get it, it's not going to be anything close to $10 mil. It's the lesser of 50% of the player's salary, or the average salary. Average salary being equal to the mle.


4. They are going to have to revamp the team under pressure and that is going to shake up the entire player market throughout the league.

If Houston wants to shake up the market they're better off mailing in 09-10 and trying to land someone big in the 2010 free agent market.

[Cant_Be_Faded]

Wow..people were sure this guy would get at least one ring when he was starting out. It's really sad if this is true. Not only sad, but ironic and infuriating. Ironic because te injured himself in his most outstanding gutsy playoff performance, one that garnered him a shitload of respect, including mine. And infuriating because wasn't it kobe that ran straight into him and fucked up his foot?

[MoSpur]

Yao is too heavy for his foot

[Indazone]

Who knows when Yao got that stress fracture? It could have been well before the playoffs and I think it was seeing as the symptoms Yao has are asymptomatic. He might have aggravated the stress fracture in the playoffs when another guy stepped on his foot (Landry) but he probably already had this break and may have played much of the season with a broken left navicular bone.

[EricB]

Yao is too heavy for his foot

Yao's exact problem.

I don't think man was made to be as big a man as he is.

Bill Walton had the same problem and it ended his career unfortunately.

[VivaPopovich]

^ it isnt just the weight on the foot, it's the length as well

it sucks to see a genuinely nice guy go out like this.