Grange on Yao: There is no next

It will be 11 years ago this Christmas that Yao Ming went mainstream. He posed on the cover of ESPN The Magazine under the heading Hidden Dragon and was projected to be a force that would change the NBA, maybe even the whole sports world.

As predicted in the article, the 7-foot-6 star of the Shanghai Sharks was the first-overall pick in the 2002 NBA draft by the Houston Rockets and it seemed like not too long after he was starring in commercials for Apple with Mini-Me, AKA, Verne Troyer.

Could there be a better harbinger of the shrinking 21st century planet than a one-of-a-kind athlete from China becoming a catalyst for star-making machinery and millions of dollars flying around the globe?

It was reported Friday that Yao was retiring from the NBA after nine seasons; the final six marred by injuries to his feet, ankles and lower legs. He did enough to justify the anticipation that he came from China with – his career PER is an impressive 23.0 (Dwight Howard’s is 22.3) and he earned all-NBA honours five times.

His popularity sometimes undermined a true appreciation for his steady, fundamentally-sound game. His millions of fans from China inflated his voting totals for the All-Star game and his media availability at All-Star weekend became an exercise in plotting your way around the throng of Chinese media that would gather around him in a hotel ballroom; dwarfing the attention received by any other player.

Tim Duncan – whose game Yao’s might have been the closest match – would slump at a chair with a handful of beat writers from San Antonio while Yao would have cameramen standing on risers.

He quickly emerged as a charming personality doing his part to open Western eyes about what the other half of the world just might be like. He seemed to represent most of the positive attributes clumsily attributed to a vast and diverse culture like China’s – respect for the group; respect for authority; a general humility – while being a friendly, engaging giant, with a gift for deadpan.

He opened a gourmet Chinese restaurant in Houston with a VIP room customized for tall people. He took his teammate, Dikembe Mutombo there, along with then Rockets assistant coach Patrick Ewing.

Ewing was concerned about having to eat snake.

“No snake,” Yao assured him. “In China, yes, but you’re not in China.”

And step by small step Yao lived up to his role as a human bridge between cultures.

But it’s interesting to pause and consider what Yao hasn’t become; or at least not yet.

In 2004 I spent nearly three weeks in China, primarily in Beijing. One of the stories I did at the time was about how basketball was becoming a mainstream sport there – with Yao and the tangible connection he provided to the NBA a big reason for the surge in popularity.

I saw Chinese kids playing pick-up basketball. I went to the Nike store in Beijing. I attended a wildly over-produced press conference to announce that the NBA had extended their agreement with a Chinese internet provider. The same news here would have been a press release quickly ignored. There it called for girls in small dresses, strobe lights and breakdancing exhibitions.

The league, and sneaker companies, saw a billion people and a steady stream of NBA talent to grow the game and sell merchandise in ever-greater volume.

And doubtless many shoes have been bought as NBA stars like Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash have made trips to China, a standard aspect of their brand-building strategies.

But what’s missing is another Yao Ming.

A decade after Yao first came to prominence as the first of a wave of untapped potential talent, the only other NBA player from China with even a hint of promise has been the underwhelming Yi Jianlian — which may be Chinese for journeyman.

There are no Chinese players projected to be drafted next year. Yao and Yi are the only Chinese-born players ever taken in the first round of the draft. There are no Chinese-born players rated among the top 100 prospects in the world, at least according to DraftExpress.

Perhaps if Yao’s health hadn’t betrayed him, his role as a human bridge may have come to pass. Perhaps the impact of his example and rain clouds sewn by basketball’s commercial interests in his home country would have begun to yield results if his feet and legs had been able to hold him up for another few years.

As it is, there’s no doubt his stature and character will guarantee him a place in the sport. His fame on two continents will forever be part of a fabric that will continue to stitch them closer together.

But for now Yao will retire as one of a kind. There is no next.