Yao Ming Could Be Out for Season, or Longer

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The gravity of Yao Ming’s broken left foot is finally sinking in for the Houston Rockets.  The fear isn’t that he’s just lost for the upcoming season, but perhaps even longer.

The Rockets and Yao’s reps are frightened over his future, and the concern is the most base of all.  Will Yao Ming 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 said. “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.

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