If the foot doesn’t heal, he’s done. That’s common sense. Now if he says the foot isn’t healing, we have a problem, but until then, not concerned.

Though Clutchfans should be melting down right about now, I guess.

I always figured that if Yao’s foot doesn’t heal or he gets severely injured again this season then he’s done.

I don’t know about you guys, but surgery and months of rehab doesn’t sound very fun. There’s probably a point in an athlete’s life where they are just done with that. Yao’s 30, he’s had a pretty good NBA career thus far, not anywhere near what we thought it would be, but not a failure. So I can’t blame him for not wanting to go through all the pain if it doesn’t work out this year.

I take such quotes (translated and out of context) with a grain of salt. It is too early to jump to conclusions.

If you head over to ESPN’s full article and read deeper into Kerns’ article here, you can read through the lines…..‘Yo China you’re not good enough for me to risk my career over.’

So before this Rocket’s fan starts to look at the situation like his foot will end his career here in Houston, i’ll continue to read over “I’m 30. As an athlete, I am not the future of China basketball anymore”.

Not a deal, much less a big one. Just common sense. And no where do I see where this was said in English and anything but an extrapolation to mean he meant the NBA and not just the national team. This is step 2 or 3 in Yao playing ONLY in the NBA.

endorses the idea that this was more Yao trying to tell China to fuck off, which it’s about time. I think he’ll be fine, his recovery is on pace and to expect Yao to put up 25 and 12 is ridiculous, he’ll have modest numbers this year but he’ll still be integral. It’s about time he gets to focus on the Rockets.

This kind of journalism (and the subsequent reactions to it) are demonstrative of the larger problems people have with simple reading comprehension. Were much more of a ‘read and react’ society than we are a ‘read and scrutinize’ bunch.

http://www.nba.com/rockets/news/_brief_lesson__critical_thi_2010_07_27.html

I think this is what most of us are saying here, but apparently the Rockets organization aren’t worried. And we shouldn’t be either.

I spent most of the offseason last year telling everyone to stop parsing T-Mac’s sentences. It looks like I’m going to have to do the same shit this year, too.

He said that he’d rather retire than keep going through surgery after surgery. That’s a pretty common sentiment, and that’s all it means.

When’s the last time you heard an athlete sound pessimistic about returning from an injury? Most athletes would say “my foot is fine… I’m ahead of schedule… I’ll be ready” whereas Yao is hedging. That makes me VERY nervous.