Rockets owner praises Yao's poise, dignity

Houston Rockets owner Leslie Alexander bid a fond farewell to Yao Ming, the trailblazing Chinese basketball star who announced his retirement from the NBA in a Shanghai press conference. "This is a sad day for me as well as the entire Houston Rockets organization," Alexander said in a statement. "Yao Ming was a great basketball player, but he's distinguished himself as an even better person. "From the moment he arrived in Houston with unprecedented expectations, he handled himself with poise, dignity, purpose and pride well beyond his years." Yao, whose arrival in the NBA with the Rockets helped spur the game's global growth, had been plagued by injuries in his past two seasons in Houston. NBA great Shaquille O'Neal, who retired last month after a 19-year career, recalled his first on-court encounter with Yao and his surprise at meeting the rare player who could match his own imposing stature. "The first time I played against him I was like, 'OK, you know what, he's a big guy,'" O'Neal told NBA TV. "You've got to take it to his head, and I went with a little oopsie-doop finger-roll, and he blocked my first three shots." O'Neal, known as a phenomenally athletic big man, said Yao was the same. "He was very agile. He could play inside, he could play outside, and if he didn't have those injuries he could've been up there in the top five centers to ever play the game," O'Neal said. Yao's former Rockets teammate Dikembe Mutombo compared Yao's impact in popularizing the NBA in China to the experience of players like himself who came out of Africa and others who came from Europe. "I don't think any one of us was able to contribute to the level that Yao Ming did," Mutombo, who is from the Democratic Republic of Congo, told NBA.com. "We're talking about a guy who came from a country that has 1.2 billion people. "I came from a country that's only got 65 million, and this guy comes from a country that has 1.2 billion. Can you imagine how many people are following him?" Added Mutombo: "His legacy will be great because he has opened a lot of doors to the NBA and allowed the young Asian players to believe in themselves that they can succeed in the NBA."