He has extremely high arches. If you are over 100 lbs in weight, that defective foot structure would break down eventually. Nothing to do with bulking up.
You will seldom hear another NBA player displaying this kind of humility. Yao was a rare breed this arena of sports. A salute to a great person.
I think that was the year he played a full season and playing the Olympics for China is what overdid it. Your avatar reminds me of how bad the Rockets management was pre-Morey.
I still remember the feeling while watching him limp to the locker room vs the lakers. He wanted to come back and play so bad. But he and I both knew at the moment, it was over. Sorry Yao. Thanks for the memories big fella. Stay off that foot.
Rik Smits definitely had a long and productive career in the NBA. But there aren't too many guys who were over 7 foot who have managed that. Mark Eaton, Manute Bol, Shawn Bradley, Ralph Sampson... It's a long list of guys who weren't able to stay healthy and a very short list of guys who did. I think Mutumbo may be the only other guy I can think of? And he was 7'2. Maybe Shaq at 7'1?
Ewing? David Robinson? Back during the Golden Age of Centers, seemed like their injury chances were no more than guards. I did not understand Robinson's big injury to be due to size. I think Duncan is 7'. It was just kind of weird that big men were so common back then and so much more durable
Although its sad to hear this about Yao, at least numbness is the extent of his problems. Every time i see mchale's limp i think of how poor the medical decisions used to be. Stay strong, big man
Van somebody cinfirnnthis. But i find it hard to believe that Yao got up to 350 lbs even at the end of career he probably topped out around 310.
A different era when Yao played, I think with Yao's work ethic he would have been able to extend his range to the 3pt line consistently. If he had a different coach at the time, Yao may have increased his career by a few years but his responsibility as well as the rumored "verbal" contract that forced him to play for China really hurt Yao in the big picture. When Yao first came into the NBA back in 2002, he was very skinny but over the course of his career Yao bulked up to be more effective in the post. Then again we can play this "what if" game till the world ends. Won't change the fact that we had a great center while he was here.
I've taken some heat for pointing this out before, but Yao didn't start breaking down until his minutes surpassed 30 a game. Check for yourself. So yes, I think the Rockets are at least partially responsible for Yao's career being cut short. They couldn't control, obviously, what happened in the offseason, but they waited until it was too late to put a cap on his minutes and back to backs.
The magic number is 7'4" as I recall...no one played regular minutes past the age of about 30 or 31 if they played at that height. They all go to limited minutes after that and early retirements. I remember Dr. Kenneth First on sports radio talking about that...how it's merely physiological and without exception (or maybe only a rare exception).
