@arkandel said in The Basketball Thread:
Yao is one of those could-have-beens. If Tracy McGrady had stayed uninjured, if China wasn't playing him every summer to the ground... if...
Could-have-beens? Yao was fantastic. His impact to the NBA is something that is scarcely noticed, but which a lot of owners know about and love.
During his injury-riddled tenure, he was a dominant force for the Rockets. He played in a big market that became a huge one. He brought the NBA into China, the league's second-biggest market. The NBA is so popular in China now that, when the L.A. Kings played a hockey game there fans showed up because they heard that Kobe Bryant was going to be there (he wasn't, but there was a message from Kobe before the game).
He finished his career with a respectable 19.0 PPG, and just under 10 RB/GM. What made him a threat was that his FT percentage always hovered around 80-85 percent, which meant you couldn't just hack at him (like you could with Shaq). In the era where dominant Cs were phased out in favor of flashy PGs, Yao is in the conversation with Dwight Howard, in terms of quality players: you don't want to build a franchise around him, but he's pretty damn handy to have in the paint.