BEIJING – Chinese basketball fans and pundits speculated Saturday about the possible end of an era following NBA superstar Yao Ming’s latest injury setback, urging the national sports hero to consider retirement.
The 7ft 6in Houston Rockets centre, who sat out all of last season after reconstructive surgery on a broken left foot, was working to come back from a left ankle injury suffered last month. This week, however, an MRI exam revealed a stress fracture in Yao’s ankle, and the team on Friday announced the 30-year-old Shanghai native, a seven-time NBA All-Star, would miss the rest of the season.
In a survey published Saturday on the website of leading Chinese sports newspaper Titan, 30 percent of those polled said it was time for Yao to hang up his trainers, even though he has yet to bring home Olympic gold for Team China. “It’s better and safe for Yao to retire now instead of undergoing an operation… Forget it and don’t toss about any more. Game over, the era will end,” Titan columnist Wang Meng wrote on his microblog Saturday.
Rockets team doctor Walter Lowe expressed optimism that Yao would be able to return, saying: “Is this something that I would say: ‘Hey, you’ve got no chance of ever playing again?’ No, absolutely not.” But fans said they could see the writing on the wall. “I have to tell you very painfully — retire, Yao,” one fan in the southern city of Dongguan said in a post on popular web portal sina.com.
Yao left for the NBA after leading the Shanghai Sharks to the China Basketball Association championship in 2002. He is now the owner and general manager of the Shanghai club where he launched his spectacular career, and where his father once played.
