Houston Rockets Center Yao Ming Announces Retirement After 9 NBA Seasons

Houston Rockets center Yao Ming will be retiring from the NBA after nine seasons according to Yahoo sports. The Chinese big man battled several injuries during the course of his career but will exit the game having averaged 19 ppg, 9.2 rpg and 1.9 bpg. During his last two seasons with the Rockets, Yao only played in 5 games.

I recall when Yao entered the league, people immediately felt he was air to the “Shaq” throne (not quite, we had to wait a few more years for Dwight Howard to come along and the jury is still out on that one)

But more than that, I recall Yao being on the receiving end of some pretty vicious dunks! Los That Sports Blog has collected their favorite “Yao-being-smashed-on” moments. Of course, you know my favorite was this one:

Au revoir (yes, I know that’s French but I can’t spell in Chinese.) I wonder if fear of a prolonged lockout led to this decision. Yao’s contract with the Rockets ended at the end of the 2010-2011 season.