The Evolution Of Yao

It happened two nights before Christmas. Six minutes into a game against the Los Angeles Clippers, Houston Rockets center Yao Ming jumped to block a shot. As he did, teammate Chuck Hayes toppled toward him. Yao remembers a great weight bearing down on his right leg, then a sharp pain. He sank to the floor at Houston's Toyota Center, clutching his right knee.

With help, he hobbled off the court, hoping for the best--perhaps he'd sit out one or two games, then return. All summer he'd said the same thing over and over to assistant coach Tom Thibodeau during their workouts: "Eighty-two games, I need to play 82 games." At the hospital, however, an MRI revealed the grim news: a bone fracture under the knee. Six weeks minimum.

Yao was crushed. Before the setback, he was finally being recognized not for what he represented but for his performance. No longer was he a curiosity, the Asian giant come to conquer America, to be paired in TV commercials with 2'8" Verne Troyer, as he had in an Apple ad in his rookie season of 2002--03. Nor, as had happened next, was he seen primarily as a symbol, a 7'6" totem of the exploding global sports economy and warming relations between East and West. Rather, for the first time, the most interesting thing about Yao Ming was the way he played basketball. He was averaging 27 points and nine rebounds and being mentioned as an MVP candidate. After Yao scored 36 points in a rout of the Mavericks in November, Dallas coach Avery Johnson marveled, "He was playing like we were not even on the floor."

Yao's ascendancy took many by surprise, as it seemed sudden, but it was not. In the U.S., where people are fascinated by six-day diets and overnight idols, consistency has no cult following. For Yao, whose work ethic may be unsurpassed in the NBA, his skill had accreted day by day, drill by drill, film session by film session, until he'd become a player unique not just in today's league but also in the history of the NBA. Not because of his nationality, as most assumed, but because he had evolved into the first truly dominating "supersized" player, that breed of NBA behemoth who is 7'4" or taller.

As such, Yao was the centerpiece of a grand experiment by the Rockets. Never before had there been a supersized player who wasn't a specialist or injury-prone. Mark Eaton (7'4") and Manute Bol (7'6") were one-dimensional, useful only as shot blockers. Shawn Bradley (7'6") couldn't adapt to the pace or the physicality of the league. Gheorghe Muresan (7'7") was skilled, but he played only three full seasons; the same was true for Ralph Sampson (7'4"). None of those players were asked to log 35 minutes a night and carry a team. But now, in his fifth season, Yao was doing just that. Finally comfortable with both American culture and the NBA game, he had reached the third step in his evolution. No longer a novelty or an emblem, he had become the best big man in the NBA.

And then the injury. Yao spent the night with his leg immobilized, despondent. He wondered whether his career would be defined by what could have been. Members of the Rockets' staff, which had invested so much in Yao, worried too. How would he respond? He'd already been through two rehabs in the previous year. In April 2006 he'd broken a bone in his left foot, requiring surgery. Four months earlier, he had undergone surgery to clean out an infection in his left big toe that required doctors to shear off part of the bone. Though only 26, he already had the worn, creased feet of someone 20 years older.

But when Yao began his rehab five days later, he had ceased brooding, deeming it unproductive. (This is how Yao thinks.) He started by lifting weights, working with Anthony Falsone, a onetime Rockets strength coach who became Yao's personal trainer in 2005. Falsone is a short, energetic man with a shaved head, the kind of guy who shows off his biceps by declaring, "Welcome to the gun show!" As Falsone maintained Yao's strength, Thibodeau worked on Yao's basketball touch, overseeing him as he shot baskets from a chair. By early February, Yao was running again, weeks ahead of schedule.

On a cool morning in the second week of the month, Yao arrived at the Toyota Center in downtown Houston at nine for his workout. Though he doesn't look bulky, Yao is far and away the strongest player on the Rockets. (He can bench 310 pounds.) This is a contrast from when he joined the team: During one of his first workouts, as he did incline presses with 45-pound dumbbells, Yao watched then teammate Jason Collier hefting 100-pounders. He turned to Falsone and asked if he'd ever be able to do that. Says Falsone, "This year, we bought 120-pound dumbbells just for Yao."

What makes Yao's increased strength more remarkable is that he has developed it without adding weight. When he entered the league, he was 300 pounds; today he is 302. This is by design. The Rockets want him to stay around 300 pounds to limit the stress on his joints, in hopes he will not be hobbled like his outsized predecessors. "Most guys gain three or four pounds a year, which doesn't sound like much, but after 10 years it adds up," says Houston coach Jeff Van Gundy. "Not Yao. No player I've been around works harder."

Only once did Yao stray, after his first season. He'd gone home to Shanghai, then returned to Dallas to practice with the Chinese national team. The Rockets sent Falsone to check up on Yao. The two met in the lobby of Yao's hotel. "He looked good," recalls Falsone, "and he said he felt good. So I say, 'Let's go up to your room and check your body fat.' Well, I get up there, and there are about 30 beer cans in the room."