Rockets will retire Yao Ming's number

swyyyguy · Dec 29, 2016

Will Carlos Boozer be in attendance? He needs to return Yao's soul.

OTMax · Dec 29, 2016

Pretty odd they didn't change it sooner, as soon as it was clear TNT was going to air that game, you knew they were limited to the duration of the ceremony. I'm sure they want to do something big so actually good it's on a night when ROOT sports airs the game.

daywalker02 · Dec 29, 2016

Hooray...

The dynamic duo - Yao and Tracy.

threepointshot3 · Dec 29, 2016

Yao is tall enough to hang it himself. Dont worry about the pulling instruments.

lnchan · Dec 29, 2016

DonnyMost said: ↑

None of that makes Yao any more worthy of inclusion.

A 7+ footer that needs the ball in the post and can't run the floor on this team? Yeah, sounds like a recipe for success.
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I loved Yao's passing ability...

lnchan · Dec 29, 2016

YaoMing#1 said: ↑

How many winshares does harden have with the rockets?

It's got to be pretty high he's been top 5 almost every year he's been here I think.
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1. Hakeem Olajuwon* 160.6
2. Calvin Murphy* 84.1
3. Rudy Tomjanovich 70.4
4. Moses Malone* 70.0
5. Yao Ming* 65.9
6. James Harden 62.2
7. Otis Thorpe 54.5
8. Steve Francis 41.4
9. Robert Reid 40.9
10. Elvin Hayes* 40.8

Harden has led the team in win shares 5 times, Yao 4 times, Olajuwon 11 times, Barkley 3 times, Francis 3 times... and Battier once.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/HOU/

lnchan · Dec 29, 2016

Career Value over Replacement Player

1. Hakeem Olajuwon* 76.4
2. James Harden 29.4
3. Steve Francis 22.9
4. Moses Malone* 22.5
5. Tracy McGrady 18.9
6. Otis Thorpe 18.7
7. Yao Ming* 17.0
8. Calvin Murphy* 16.4
9. Shane Battier 15.5
10. Rodney McCray

DonKnock · Dec 29, 2016

Mandatory

zeeshan2 · Feb 2, 2017

Great piece by JVG:

Yao was really funny, but the thing about Yao’s humor was that you rarely saw it coming.

You can tell a whole lot about a basketball player by how he practices, and Yao Ming was one of the hardest working guys I ever coached.

And you can tell a lot about a player by how he treats his teammates. If there’s a Mount Rushmore of great teammates, Yao belongs on it.

Over the years, I’ve also learned that you can tell a lot about a person’s character by how he deploys humor — not only which jokes he tells or what he laughs at (though that’s part of it). It’s something harder to describe. It’s just something you pick up on when you’re around a person. It’s a vibe. It’s not always what’s said, but how you feel when you’re in a person’s presence.

Yao used to play this recurring joke on me.

He had one bad ear, the result of hearing loss he had suffered as a kid, and I could never quite keep track of which ear it was. The thing was, Yao knew that I was confused about it. So whenever I made the team run a drill for pick-and-roll defense in practice — which required Yao to get in a low defensive stance (not his favorite thing to do) — Yao would point to one ear and and wave his hand, as if to say, I can’t hear you, Coach … this is my bad ear.

I would maneuver my way around to his other ear, and continue to harp on his defensive stance. “Get lower! Get in a stance!”

Inevitably, Yao would smile and say, “No, no, Coach. THIS is my bad ear.”

It always made me think of a scene from Brian’s Song, the 1971 movie about the friendship between Chicago Bears running backs Brian Piccolo and Gale Sayers. In the scene, Piccolo convinces Sayers, who’s a rookie, that their coach — the legendary George Halas — is deaf in one ear. Armed with this bit of misinformation, Sayers marches into Halas’s office, acting bizarrely and speaking loudly because he thinks the coach cannot hear him.

People tend to judge an NBA player’s career solely on how many championships he won. Winning championships is a big factor in the end, but I’ve always believed that conducting yourself as a champion is more important. I first saw that trait in Patrick Ewing when I coached him in New York. And I immediately noticed it in Yao.

During Yao’s career, he often battled two other Hall of Fame-caliber centers who were each at different points of their careers: Shaq was in his 30s, and he was still the best center in the league; Dwight Howard was the best young center in the game. And then there was Yao, who in his mid-twenties was younger than Shaq, but older than Dwight. Yao was better than Dwight, and the gap between Yao and Shaq was smaller than the gap between Yao and Dwight.

I’ve got hundreds of stories about how Yao played. Somehow I think we still don’t appreciate how skilled he was. (If you’re, say, under 25 years old, do me a favor right now: YouTube Yao Ming behind the back dribble.) But, to me, what truly defined Yao’s greatness — his basketball “character” — were the moments when he was on the bench or off the court.

I loved the way Tracy McGrady and Yao treated each other as teammates. One thing they showed everyone was that basketball shouldn’t be a selfish endeavor. Yao and Tracy were kindred spirits in this way. They never fought over the silly notion of whose team it was. Instead, they understood what everyone should remember from kindergarten: to share — the credit, the blame and the responsibility.
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http://www.theplayerstribune.com/jeff-van-gundy-yao-ming-rockets-jersey-retirement-china/

J.R. · Feb 2, 2017

J.R. · Feb 3, 2017

What's the point of a RSN when they don't show ****? Games only. Don't even give you the option to stream games, like say, Fox Sports.

Yao Ming press conference just now, nowhere to be found.

Currently showing on Root Sports: "University of Central Arkansas: More than 94"

WHAT.THE.****?

Root Sports gonna show the Yao Ming jersey retirement tonight or are we gonna have to listen to Bart & Kevin?

Thanks Root Sports. Thanks Rockets.com. You the real MVP!

tinman · Feb 3, 2017

daywalker02 said: ↑

Hooray...

The dynamic duo - Yao and Tracy.
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I like Yao and Ron Artest, too bad that was just one season team up

J.R. · Feb 3, 2017

Beautiful!

houtown · Feb 3, 2017

I was a yao ming fan, but do not Think his jersey should be retired because he was chinese and what he meant to that market business wise at the time. Good skilled player, but not a hall of fame player in My opinion at the time.

dmenacela · Feb 3, 2017

houtown said: ↑

I was a yao ming fan, but do not Think his jersey should be retired because he was chinese and what he meant to that market business wise at the time. Good skilled player, but not a hall of fame player in My opinion at the time.
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gtfo

celebrevida · Feb 4, 2017

houtown said: ↑

I was a yao ming fan, but do not Think his jersey should be retired because he was chinese and what he meant to that market business wise at the time. Good skilled player, but not a hall of fame player in My opinion at the time.
Click to expand...

The thing to note is that it isn't the NBA Hall of Fame. Rather it is the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame (BHOF) which has different divisions. The major ones are North American, International and Women.

Yao did not get selected on the North American committee, nor should he have. This is de-facto the NBA wing of the BHOF and I agree that Yao didn't have a good enough NBA career to qualify.

Instead he was selected for the International division and as he clearly is one of the greatest International players ever, certainly qualifies.

As for retiring numbers, if Nets can retire Drazen Petrovic's number and Spurs can retire Bruce Bowen's number, then I don't see why the Rockets can't retire Yao's number as well.

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