Yao devoting energy to rehab, running former Chinese team

It never gets easier for Yao Ming.

Not the shock and disappointment at the moment when the newest injury strikes. Not the preparation and recovery from the latest round of surgery. Not the long, lonely nights away from his teammates out on the basketball court or the difficult days going through another round of rehab.

"Here I am back at the beginning again and telling myself that it is a long process and there is no rushing," Yao said. "It is the most difficult part, the mental part. You have to find a way not to look too far into the future. Just wake up and do the work the next day."

More than seven months since his most recent setback put him on the sidelines right in the middle of the Houston Rockets' second-round playoff series with the Los Angeles Lakers and five months since he underwent reconstructive surgery on his left foot, Yao is taking, well, steps toward perhaps one final shot at what has been a star-crossed NBA career.

While he has shed the hard, uncomfortable cast in favor of a smaller, removable boot and has recently taken to walking on a treadmill -- with the load on his feet limited to roughly half his body weight -- the 7-foot-6 Yao still uses crutches that look like they could be used in a pole vault competition to get around. And as he negotiates the aisles of a Houston restaurant carefully and hears words of encouragement from many of the surprised diners gazing up from their tables, he smiles and nods and sometimes wonders if they can even comprehend the anguish.

"This time, because of all the things they had to do rebuilding my foot, there was more physical pain after the surgery," Yao said. "But it was knowing what the rehab means that, right when they came to put the mask over my face before the surgery, almost made me say, 'No. No. No. Forget it.' "

The truth is, his parents would have preferred that their son not put himself through another round of surgery and tireless toil and Yao himself might have thought about prematurely ending his playing career.

"But I asked the doctors whether someday in the future, if I had a son, would I be able to get onto the court and play basketball him without the surgery," Yao said. "They told me no. I want to have a normal life. I want to be able to do those things with my son. So if I was going to need surgery anyway, why not have this and try to play again."

This was the same procedure that Zydrunas Ilgauskas of the Cleveland Cavaliers had nearly 10 years ago after suffering repeated injuries to his left foot. For the following two seasons, Ilgauskas was limited to just over 20 minutes per game before resuming his role as the Cavs' starting center and proving quite durable ever since.

"Those are all long term questions about the future and I cannot allow myself to look at the long term now," Yao said. "I expect to be recovered and feeling good and ready next season for training camp. What I can control is what I do today and then tomorrow. Now I just try to concentrate and keep all of my focus on the rehab each day and find other things to keep my interest and my attention."

No matter how well his rehab progresses, Yao will not play for China in the World Basketball Championship next summer in Istanbul, Turkey.

Yao's other main interest these days is in his role as owner of the Shanghai Sharks, his old team in the Chinese Basketball Association. Since winning the CBA title in 2002 with Yao as their mainstay, the Sharks have fallen on hard times and in the 2008-09 season finished in last place with a 6-44 record. The Sharks, who have missed the playoffs for six straight seasons, have also had the steepest attendance drop in the CBA, despite dropping their ticket price to 2 yuan (30 cents) last season.

"It is my challenge to try to make the Sharks a winning team again, to make them successful, so that the fans of my hometown will want to support them again," Yao said.

Yao has signed his former Rockets teammate John Lucas III and ex-NBA Development League center Garrett Siler to play for the Sharks and installed Bob Donewald Jr. as head coach. Donewald, whose father was a long time assistant under Bob Knight at Indiana and was the head coach at Illinois State, has coached at the college, international and NBA level for more than 15 years and Yao wants him to be a Jeff Van Gundy-type with the Sharks, laying a foundation based on a sound, aggressive philosophy.

"I have found out there is a lot more involved in being the owner of a team than I thought," Yao said laughing. "I spent time every day talking on the phone to someone -- the coach, the general manager -- over there in China and working on something.

"When I'm on the court as a player, my responsibility is to be in the best condition myself and try to work with my teammates. But as the one who is responsible for a team you must make decisions about other people and then turn over responsibility to them. This is difficult.

"What I want to do with the team is bring some of what I have learned in the NBA. I want them to play with a soul. I want their soul to be all about basketball, about passion and being a team. I think in China what you see many times is a skin, but with no soul inside."

Yao traveled to China to be on hand when the Sharks opened the 2009-10 CBA last week in Shanghai and will remain in his hometown for more than a month. But the daily grind of the rehab will continue. And his hopes are with his Rockets teammates.

"In Shanghai or in Houston, the work is the same and I am putting all of my effort into getting healthy and returning to play," Yao said. "I watch my team now and I see them playing hard and with success and I see them playing a very different style of play. I know that I cannot run up and down the floor all night with this style, but I think there must be a way that we can combine styles.

"I was happy to win my first playoff series last season. I felt like we were building something and had a good future as a team. I still believe in that future. I tell myself it is just delayed. I look forward to coming back again."

Fran Blinebury has covered the NBA since 1977. You can e-mail him here.

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