Yao done?-Rockets could lose Yao for season -- or longer - NBA - Yahoo! Sports

[Skunk Works]

Rockets could lose Yao for season -- or longer - NBA - Yahoo! Sports
As the NBA draft approached, the grim truth about Yao Ming’s(notes) broken left foot hung like an anvil over the Houston Rockets. The fear isn’t that he’s just lost for next season, but longer.

The Rockets and Yao’s reps are frightened over his future, and the concern is the most base of all: Does Yao Ming ever play again?

“The realization has hit them that this is grave,” one NBA general manager said.


For now, the Rockets have privately told league peers it could be a full season before Yao might be able to return to basketball. Multiple league executives, officials close to Yao and two doctors with knowledge of the diagnoses are describing a troubling, re-fracture of his navicular bone. Three pins were inserted a year ago, but the foot cracked in the playoffs and isn’t healing.


“It sounds like he’s missing most of next season, if not the entire 82 games,” one league executive who has had recent discussions with the Houston front office told Yahoo! Sports. “That’s all that [the Rockets] will concede quietly, but they know it’s probably much worse.”

Houston general manager Daryl Morey refused comment on Monday and a team spokesman said the Rockets will not have further comment until Yao undergoes additional medical tests.

There’s no reason for the Rockets to disclose the severity of the injury, nor the uncertainty over Yao’s future. Before the Rockets go public with a dire diagnosis, they plan to send him to three more specialists this week, a source said. For now, the Rockets have season tickets and sponsorships to sell. For now, the Rockets will publicly decry these doomsday revelations as premature, but this is the reality that they’re working under within the organization.

This has turned into an impossible situation for the Rockets’ capable GM. Even if Yao plays again, Morey knows it’s just a matter of time until his lower body breaks down. His feet and ankles just can’t support the mobility of his 7-foot-6 frame.

With four surgeries in three years, the Rockets worried they were reaching a breaking point. Well, it’s here. After missing 86 games in the previous three seasons, the 28-year-old Yao missed a mere five this past regular season before injuring his foot during the Rockets’ second-round playoff series against the Los Angeles Lakers.


It wasn’t until last week when Houston issued a statement saying Yao’s fractured foot hadn’t healed properly, that he would be unavailable “indefinitely.” Prior to Thursday’s draft, Morey tried desperately to trade into the high lottery to take Spanish prodigy Ricky Rubio(notes). Houston needed a young star, but had too few assets to make a deal with Memphis or Sacramento. It seemed odd to teams that Houston had thrown Shane Battier(notes) and Aaron Brooks(notes) into offers within weeks of pushing the NBA champion Lakers to seven games in the Western Conference semifinals.


Now, the Rockets have tough decisions to make: Do they keep pushing Tracy McGrady(notes) and his expiring contract on the market or let the $22 million expire next summer? So far, Morey is getting offered bad contracts and junk talent for him. What’s more, does Houston re-sign Ron Artest(notes) to a $40 million-plus contract when contention is no longer viable? Why not create cap space for the summers of 2010 and 2011? Why not get younger now? Yao could opt out of his contract next summer, but odds are that Houston won’t so fortunate.


The Rockets should do themselves a favor and just start over. That isn’t easy in a sophisticated and rabid NBA market like Houston, but what everyone long suspected has reached fruition: Yao and McGrady are no longer a faulty foundation, but a collapsed one. Houston needs to proceed with an understanding that they’re no longer chasing the Lakers, but beginning again.


Rest assured, Houston has long been fearful that Yao’s responsibilities to the Chinese national team were rapidly contributing to his breakdown, and perhaps they’ve finally been met. Yao wouldn’t have missed the Beijing Olympics for the world, but it was clear he wasn’t fully healed in those Games. The Rockets paid a price for his nationalism, his obligation and now the darkest fears are close to confirmation: It isn’t just a season on the brink for Yao Ming, but perhaps a career.

Adrian Wojnarowski is the NBA columnist for Yahoo! Sports. Send Adrian a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast.

[agutierrez]

Yahoo sports is reporting that Yao Ming is out for all next season and may never play basketball again. Sad.

[Money4Nothing]

That really sucks. I love Yao Ming he's a good guy and a good player, its just too bad that his body can't take the grind of the NBA.

$

[JTD]

Youch!

[Jason R]

I feel really bad for Yao, one of the good guys of the league. Rockets are done though.

[clovisnmspurfan]

Sad day for Yao

[spurs fan removed]

sux for houston. now that stoudamire trade seems very needed.

[ThomasamohT]

That's what Houston gets for making it to the second round...J/K

This sucks for Yao and I hope he can recover from this. Maybe they can have him sit out the first half of each season to prevent so much wear and tear on his body.

[Uwe Blab]

It's a shame. Unlike all of the other freaks that were 7 feet 2 and over, he was actually very good.

[Binji]

Wow... that was a hit...
I wish him all well.. even the doctors make mistakes.

[MichaelWi101]

Yao seems like a genuinely nice guy, too bad for him, no sympathy for Houston though, good to see them have to consider tearing it all down and starting over again after only 1 successful playoff run, now they go back with the rest of the pretenders....

[grizzly_bexar]

Sad for Yao. I doubt we'll ever see him play in the NBA again.

Not to rub it in, but anybody who was chewed out by the Rocket boosters last summer after saying that we'd need to see McGrady & Yao finish a season together before we believed their championship hopes had any foundation has been proven correct.

Interesting that they mention the navicular bone. That's one I don't recall hearing about in human athlete stories. What I mean by that is degeneration of the navicular bone is the most common (AFAIK) source of lameness problems in horses, and that's where I usually hear about it.

[old timer]

Yes, rotten. Ask Bill Walton about this type injury. Big guys running and jumping do not do their legs and associated joints a whole lot of good. It really sucks for all involved, especially Yao.

[buttsR4rebounding]

Originally Posted by ThomasamohT

That's what Houston gets for making it to the second round...J/K

This sucks for Yao and I hope he can recover from this. Maybe they can have him sit out the first half of each season to prevent so much wear and tear on his body.

I wonder when teams will start doing this? I thought the for the last 3 or 4 years of DRob's career that the Spurs should have just sat him unitl the All Star break. 30 games is plenty to play into shape and get your timing he would be fresh for the playoffs. It's not like we weren't going to make the playoffs. It might have extended his career by 2 or 3 years. Houston should be doing the same w/ Yao and Cleveland w/ Shaq. Heck if I'm the Lakers I probably only play Bynmum 55 games a year since he seems prone to break down.

[SleepyAdamII]

he had alot of things going against him ( Yao), most 7'+ guys wear and tear quicker than other players. I place alot of the blame on the chinese government for forcing him to play basketball year round. they used him up, and he did his duty. But it really took more out of him than he deserved. Yao was nothing if not a classy, hard working, extremely pressured man.

[timm]

wow geeze that really sucks for yao.. the rockets are done, blah blah..

Now can we please have Scola back now?

[My2Cents]

Heard on the radio that YAO's career is over!!! Done.

[Dulce]

Originally Posted by timm

wow geeze that really sucks for yao.. the rockets are done, blah blah..

Now can we please have Scola back now?

[mpgraphix]

Feel bad for the big man...when healthy...was a top center in the league.

wow...continue to be wary when picking a big man

[janieannie]

Another article from the sports staff of the Houston Chronicle - more of a wait and see approach to the injury:

Rockets center Yao Ming’s left foot injury could be severe enough to be season ending or even career-threatening depending on the success of potential treatments chosen, Rockets team physician Tom Clanton said Monday.


"At this point, the injury has the potential for him missing this next season and could be career threatening," Clanton said. "One of the things we are trying to get is a consensus opinion on that, to make certain there is no option we are overlooking that would provide an earlier return or would be an option for treatment that he would prefer rather than doing additional surgery."


Clanton, responding to a story on Yahoo Sports that reported that the Rockets and Yao representatives are concerned Yao will never play again, said that Yao could choose to try again to immobilize the foot in the hopes that the hairline fracture of the tarsal navicular bone would heal on its own, as several of his previous bone injuries have and doctors expected this time.


"We are not going to comment," Rockets general manager Daryl Morey said, "until we have all the facts."


Yao is scheduled to meet with several specialists to consider a wide variety of options. Clanton declined to say what option he expects to recommend.


Because Yao is entirely asymptomatic, there remains a hope that additional time in a boot or cast could allow the bone to heal on its own.


"I don’t think that is necessarily a longshot," Clanton said. "It takes a lot of time.

It may be best to take more time (immobilizing the foot). Sometimes that is the best option."


The surgical treatment options could include placing a pin inside the foot, a bone graft or even realigning the foot to operate differently. Cleveland Cavaliers center Zydrunas Ilgauskas underwent similar procedures, reducing his high arch to a flatter foot position, an option that could be considered for Yao, Clanton said, though his arch is not as high as Ilgauskas’ was.


"It’s more that’s what we’re hoping to avoid, but that is certainly a realistic situation given his injury and the way the bone looked on the CT scan," Clanton said. "The fact he is having no symptoms gives us reason for optimism."


Yao had a pin inserted in the foot in February 2006 and was ready to play in the Olympics in less than six months, and in 77 regular-season games last season. Clanton, however, said there is concern that a more extreme procedure might be warranted, even though his current injury is considered less severe.


Clanton expected the hairline fracture that ended Yao’s season, his fourth bone injury in the past four seasons, to have healed when Yao returned from China for a CT scan last week.


Instead, it not only healed, but Clanton said it grew worse. He said doctors will also try to determine whether Yao has suffered a loss of blood supply in the area, causing the injury to heal more slowly.


"The hairline fracture that is present in the previous X-rays shows evidence it has not healed and has extended across the bone," Clanton said.


"At this stage he is having no symptoms or physical signs. He has no tenderness, no swelling, no redness. When he came back in, he was feeling like everything was perfect, and he would start rehabilitation and get ready to play. The findings on the CT were shocking for him and for us.


"Sometimes the findings on an X-ray or CT don’t necessarily mean that is exactly what you treat. You don’t treat a CT scan; you treat a patient. We are looking for every reason to teat this on clinical findings, but don’t want to put him at risk for a greater fracture.


"What we are looking at is a discrepancy in the clinical findings on him and what he tells us, and the findings on the diagnostic imaging studies that tell us what the bone looks like."

jonathan.feigen@chron.com