well shoot... Its probably time for the Rockets to go a different direction anyway. But hopefully this isn't true.
Wow. It seems like blowing stuff out of proportion is in fashion this season. All Yao is saying is that if he isn't 100% he thinks he will quit. So what? Every star at some point in time after recovering from a major injury says this. After Amar'e's surgery there was speculation if he would play or not. The doubters of a healthy Yao will look to this and say "look, look! I was right, that article about Yao not playing, this is proof! Look at me! Look at me!". The believers in Yao will say this is humbleness, and this is more of a side effect of having such a devastating injury and he will return to form. I believe the truth is somewhere in the middle. There is no doubt in my mind Yao is humble to a fault as well as Yao will not be back in top form immediately, but to say he is at peak shape or he is going to quit the game is dumb. The article has as much good in it as bad, but the emphasis seems to be this "Yao is done" mindset.
If Yao openly talking about the possibility that he may not be fully healed by the end of next year, it throws into question how healed he will be at the start of the season. Do we even want Yao playing if his foot isn't fully healed?
Imagine how much the traffic of this message board would go down if Yao retired? It would be a ghost town in here.
I love Yao, but I've been concerned that even if he's unable to perform, we'll continue paying him x-million dollars because he brings in xxx-million (yeah, p*rn) dollars. If he retires, we won't be obligated to keep him. We can just move on. Excellent news.
Who is blowing anything out of proportion? This team is centered around Yao Ming. He's the closest thing we have to a legit franchise, Alpha Dog caliber player. He's been hobbled by tons of injuries. He's 7'6". We're heading into a crucial season in terms of knowing what we can expect from him going forward....where we're already hearing about limited minutes.... there are tons of assumptions about him being fully healed. we've heard doctors say he can't. we've heard about others who've had the surgery successfully and things have worked out ok. earlier in the offseason he tells bosh he's healthy and will be ready to go. we get bits of rumor that he may not be able to play the first two months. all of a sudden, his tone changes. he's talking about retiring if he doesn't fully heal. he's talking about this season being really just a test for him, and that people shouldn't expect him at full strength this season. This is a HUGE story if you care about the Houston Rockets
I'm sure Yao does have some doubts about his playing future, which is perfectly natural coming off of major surgery. I think however, this is more about Yao trying to do everything he can to get out of playing for the Chinese national team going forward. He has made a few comments hinting towards that already, especially the one comment about him not being the future of Chinese basketball. Plus he criticized the administrators of the national team in this article. For him to publicly criticize any aspect of the Chinese government is out of character for Yao. My guess is he wants to play just for the Rockets so he can rest each summer and minimize the amount of stress on his body going forward. I'm guessing his management team has been making the argument to the Chinese government this past year that if Yao has to continue to play for the national team it will abruptly cut short his NBA playing career and Yao's comments are trying to reinforce that argument. Which means that the Chinese government would lose their global status in basketball altogether if Yao is no longer playing in the NBA. My guess is that they will eventually agree to have Yao just promote the Chinese national team without forcing him to play on the team. Even if that does happen there is still a chance that Yao's playing career will be cut short due to the surgery. But if the recovery is ultimately successful then Yao could add years on to his NBA career by not having to play on the National team and I'm guessing that is what he has been thinking about since the surgery.
then dont open the thread and read it if you already knew this. not all of us sit here waiting all day for the next topic someone posts.... its news to me.
You mean the "Lowry" can pass the ball to Yao better, brigade? No, I don't think I will miss them. DD
Um, when did Yao's tone change? He's always like this. He gives you the blunt, honest truth - the complete opposite of a majority of NBA stars - and routinely includes the worst-case scenario. That's just who he is. He's not an arrogant punk who guarantees he'll be ready to go from microfracture surgery after nine months. There's always a risk, and he acknowledges it. This "story" isn't even news. It's common sense. Yao had a radical reconstruction of his foot after breaking it three times, and if THIS doesn't work, he'd be a complete idiot not to retire. Did any of you think differently? But we live in the world of the 10-second ESPN soundbyte, and now the Chronicle can put out a tweet saying "Yao may retire after next season", which will create mass hysteria and draw people to their website. Absolutely nothing to the story, but such is the state of modern journalism. If Yao says his foot doesn't feel healthy, THAT is a story. Saying he could retire if it breaks again? That's COMMON SENSE. He'd be a fool not to. It's a little unorthodox because most NBA players don't include the worst-case scenarios in how they talk, but that's who Yao is and has always been. Unfortunately, most in the tabloid media don't get this and it'll get completely blown out of proportion, just like the speculation from a week ago.
