ShareThisYao Ming was a celebrated No. 1 pick when the Houston Rockets took the Chinese big man as the prize of the 2002 NBA draft.
And shockingly, Ming was worthy of the hype associated with his arrival. He made an impact immediately and became as good as anyone that tall who had ever played in the NBA.
Ming's first All-Star appearance was because he came from a country with a lot of people and a lot of people with internet access. But he earned his way there the rest of the time and was the franchise center everyone hopes they'll be able to land when their team is bad enough to play the lottery.
But there is a big problem. Ming can't stay healthy. He wants to. Of that I have no doubt.
But there is reason to wonder if a 7-foot-5 body can take the pounding on an 82-game NBA season. The frequent flights and a different bed every night probably aren't the best medicine, either.
Ming will probably miss next season with an injured left foot. He had to bow out of an interesting second-round series with the Lakers, one that eventually went seven games.
My most recent memory of Ming is the brilliant way he played as the Rockets stole Game 1 from the eventual champs in L.A. Could he have done the same in a Game 7?
We will never know.
And I'm not sure if we'll ever know the real Yao Ming on the basketball court again.
Ming amazingly only missed two games over his first three seasons in the league. He came back from three injury-plagued seasons to play 77 high-quality games last year before going down in the playoffs.
Ming averaged 19.7 points, 9.8 rebounds and shot 55 percent from the field and 87 from the line. He posted double-doubles in half of his 76 starts. And he kept a Tracy McGrady-less Rockets' team of journeymen as a threat in the West.
I recall when a Dallas Mavericks' team one year from making the NBA Finals had no answers for McGrady and Ming as the Rockets took the first two playoff games in Dallas, only to lose in seven.
The Rockets have been the ultimate "what if" team. As in "what if McGrady and Ming are healthy at playoff time?"
I don't know what to think about McGrady at this point, but with Ming I have a theory.
Maybe really, really tall guys aren't meant to run up and down a court that often. To get where you want in the NBA is going to take more than 100 games.
Bill Walton couldn't do it. Ralph Sampson couldn't, either. Manute Bol was never asked to do it to this extent. Arvydas Sabonis couldn't handle it, although he was getting up in age by time he made it to the NBA.
This is hindsight, sure, but maybe the Yao Ming plan should have been to build a playoff team that could get there without the big man. Maybe Yao could have played 30, 40 or 50 games a season to get ready for the playoffs, when it really counts.
Now David Stern might throw a fit if a team did this with its star. Say they played him in all 41 home games and nine of the nearby road games. Opposing teams would have to market themselves and not the visiting Rockets I guess.
The Rockets couldn't use my strategy even if they wanted to next year as it was announced over the weekend that Ming was out for the year.
But the Cleveland LeBrons could use it with their center Shaquille O'Neal. Its amazing Shaq has played as long as he has with so many playoff games. It's not like his reputation for off-season work put him in the Jerry Rice-Lance Armstrong category, either.
But let Shaq ease into the season. Don't play him on back-to-back games. Let him sit games against bad teams with no center.
Just have him ready for the playoffs.
For all the knocks on another Rocket -- seven-time Cy Young winner Roger Clemens -- he figured out when his right arm could no longer work eight months and he needed a shorter season.
The Rocket plan might have saved Yao Ming's career if they'd thought of it. And it could really help the next team with a too-tall-to-last-long franchise center.
(Andy Newberry writes for the Wichita Falls Times Record News in Texas.)
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