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Rockets are done too.
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
Rockets are done too.
wow. that sucks
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?
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.
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.
Yao has been such a class act and a worldwide ambassador for NBA basketball. I hope he can come back from this.
Damn, that sucks for Yao. He's a good guy and deserves better.
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 ...
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.
agree with you on this one
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
Yep. +1
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.
Sucks for Yao but thats one less contender we have to worry about.
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.
That's very unfortunate for the Rockets and it must be tough for Yao.
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.
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.
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