Yao Ming interested in buying Clippers, report says

With news breaking today that Donald Sterling will allow his wife to go ahead and sell the Clippers, many are starting to speculate on who could make a deal and buy the team. Magic Johnson has been discussed to death, and now there is another name reportedly joining the fray: Yao Ming.

After retiring from the league in 2011, Yao returned to China and bought his former team, the Shanghai Sharks, who were in financial disarray, and has owned them ever since. Returning to the United States to buy the Clippers would be a huge surprise, but the league would be much better off for it.

With Donald Sterling departing, the NBA is going to want any new owner of the team to be a model citizen to help make the stink Sterling left go away. Out goes the racist, discriminatory scumbag and in comes a guy who has spent his free time over the last three years saving endangered animals in Africa? It's a dream for Adam Silver.

Add in the fact that Yao is internationally one of the most widely respected and loved players to ever play in the NBA, and it's a slam dunk for the league. Yao is a great ambassador for the game to Asia, and his returning to involvement in the NBA would be a boon for the league's popularity abroad.

This is just one report and there will be many more with other names involved, but I hope something comes of it. The NBA has been without Yao for far too long.