Basketball Hall of Famer, business magnate, cultural ambassador - no Chinese athlete carries a richer legacy than Yao Ming, who broke into the NBA 20 years ago.
The Shanghai-born center was drafted by the Houston Rockets on June 26, 2002, launching a career that won him many accolades and made Yao a household name in China and the United States.
A deceptively agile player for someone who stands 2.29 meters tall, Yao's gentle personality and wry humor cemented him as a fan favorite and boosted the NBA's popularity in China.
No Chinese player has come close to matching his achievements, and the prospect appears even less likely as the league has become mired in simmering tensions between Beijing and Washington.
In 2002, Yao was the face of an increasingly confident and open China. "He took the NBA into China, but he also took China into the NBA," said Beijing fan Gao Dabao, 30. "It was the time the NBA had its biggest influence on China, and we all watched it on TV."
The son of two former basketball pros, Yao cut his teeth with the Shanghai Sharks before joining the Rockets as the No 1 pick in the 2002 NBA draft. He averaged 19 points and nine rebounds per game over nearly a decade with the Texas-based team dubbed the "Ming Dynasty."
Yao played in eight All-Star Games and made the All-NBA Team on five occasions, but injuries forced him to retire in 2011 at the age of 30.
"Yao Ming is the only Chinese player to have become a real NBA star," said Chinese basketball writer Wang Meng.
Yao, 41, was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2016 alongside Shaquille O'Neal and Allen Iverson. He now serves as chairman of the Chinese Basketball Association but he keeps a low profile, dabbling in winemaking, conservation and charity work.
Simon Chadwick, director of the Center for the Eurasian Sport Industry at Emlyon Business School, said Yao had "represented a changing world." But now "the power dynamic between [China and the US] has changed."
CCTV stopped screening NBA games after a 2019 tweet by the Rockets' then-general manager Daryl Morey in support of Hong Kong democracy protesters. Only a handful of games have been shown on Chinese TV since, and the league's fortunes have taken a beating in its biggest overseas market.
Five other Chinese players made it to the NBA, but none with the same impact as Yao.
"Yao in the mid-2000s was an entirely different proposition to what the Yao of 2022 would be," Chadwick said.
Yao Ming played in eight All-Star Games and made the All-NBA Team five times. AP
Yao Ming on draft day in 2002. AFP
