Yao Ming

The Sad (capital S) career tumble of the injury-prone monolith Yao Ming (who may never play pro-basketball again) is something no one in Houston wants to talk about (and perhaps, something no one in his native China is allowed to talk about).

Michael Wilbon, who composes overly sentimental columns whenever he finds a topic on which to report, wrote Ming's obituary here, asking fans to think of all the great things Yao has done for basketball and its visibility in China:

While it's difficult to get exact ratings of the 39 NBA games broadcast in a season in China on CCTV (China Central television), the best available evidence is that approximately 200 million have frequently watched when the Rockets play, which is about one-third of the time. That's 195 million more than watch an NBA playoff game, on average. It's nearly two Super Bowls worth of eyeballs on any game. Or as former Rockets guard Sam Cassell said, "Let's just say for the sake of arguing, its 50 million people. That means Yao attracts a major market all by himself. Actually, that's five major markets. And we all know it's a lot more people than that. It's hundreds of millions watching games for the whole time he's been in the league."

If I may cash in on my (similar) penchant for the lachrymose, I'd like to direct you to a post I wrote during the 2009 NBA playoffs when Yao Ming, defying the pleadings of his trainers, returned to a game against the Lakers and led the Rockets to unlikely victory on the road. Two games later, he would be out of the series with the injury which caused him to miss 18 months of a hoops. The Lakers would cruise to a championship.