Yao Ming To Be Inducted Into Basketball Hall Of Fame

Yao Ming will soon be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame’s Class of 2016, according to Yahoo! Sports. It’s news that has many Rockets fans excited.

The 35-year-old former Houston Rockets player who stands at a staggering 7-foot-6 retired in 2011 after several injuries. Ming was selected for the Hall of Fame by Direct Elect International Committee, according to Fox Sports.

Can confirm @YaoMing will be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. #Rockets

— Mark Berman (@MarkBermanFox26) March 30, 2016

Ming’s career spanned nine years, and he played a total of 486 games. He was an All-Star eight times during his career, according to CBS Sports.

Yao Ming was the No. 1 pick in the 2002 NBA Draft, coming from playing for the Shanghai Sharks for several years. Ming is credited with connecting China and the United States in the world of basketball. Ming’s rise to fame significantly increased Chinese interest in professional basketball, and it also set the stage for other Chinese players to be scouted.

It’s been estimated that Yao sometimes got around 200 million people in China to watch Rockets games when he was playing.

Yao is one of a short list of NBA players to finish their career with averages of 19 points and 9.2 rebounds per game. He was shooting around 23 points and 10.2 rebounds at the height of his career, according to CBS Sports.

Shaquille O’Neal and Allen Iverson are also finalists for being inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Yao Ming’s career was not always expected to be highly successful early on. Many sports commentators, including Dick Vitale of ESPN, thought Ming would mostly be a failure. Charles Barkley famously said he would kiss co-analyst Kenny Smith’s behind if Yao was able to score more than 19 points in a rookie season game. Ming beat that challenge, and Barkley ended up kissing a donkey’s behind on national television.

Early in Yao’s career, there was a bit of controversy related to his being a Chinese basketball player. In December of 2002, the Miami Heat passed out thousands of fortune cookies right before Ming’s first NBA game. Some called the act racist, but fortune cookies aren’t actually a traditional treat in China, so Ming didn’t even know what they were. Ming largely ignored the ploy.

Another situation where Yao Ming’s Chinese origins came into the spotlight was when Shaquille O’Neal made some comments that some people said were very racist. O’Neal was being interviewed on television when he said, “Tell Yao Ming, ‘Ching-chong-yang-wah-ah-so.” Once again, Ming took little offense to the comments and said he did not find them to be racist, but he acknowledged many others might find them offensive.

Yao’s career began to face some issues in his fourth season when he developed osteomyelitis in one of his toes. Osteomyelitis is the infection or inflammation of a bone. Ming missed 21 games while recovering from toe surgery. Later on in the fourth season, Ming broke a bone in his left foot. In the beginning of his fifth season, Yao broke his right knee.

There were many injuries in Yao Ming’s career, but he always came out of recovery ready to fight again. That’s one of the reasons, beyond his stellar record and his paving the way for Chinese players, he’s such an obvious choice for the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Yao Ming may be retired from the NBA, but he certainly hasn’t left the world of basketball altogether. Ming is currently the owner of the Shanghai Sharks, where his own career began, according to the Bleacher Report. Perhaps Ming is hoping to spot the next massive Chinese basketball player who will go to the NBA.

[Photo by Lintao Zhang/Getty Images]