 "Photo: Eric Gay/The Associated Press")
HOUSTON — Rockets center Yao Ming’s broken left foot could be a “career-threatening” injury.
Dr. Tom Clanton, the Houston Rockets’ team physician, told the Houston Chronicle on Monday that Yao’s injury “has the potential for him missing this next season and could be career-threatening.”
Yahoo! Sports first reported the Rockets and Yao’s representatives were concerned the 7-foot-6 All-Star would never play again. Yahoo! Sports quoted “multiple league executives, officials close to Yao and two doctors with knowledge of the diagnoses.”
Yao suffered a hairline fracture of the tarsal navicular bone late in a May 8 playoff game against the Los Angeles Lakers. The team said last week the injury hasn’t healed and he was out indefinitely.
Yao played in 77 regular-season games in 2008-09, his most injury-free year since 2004-05, when he played in 80. Before last season, Yao missed chunks of the previous three seasons with leg and foot injuries.
He missed 21 games in 2005-06 after surgery to heal an infection of his left big toe, then broke a bone in his left foot with four games left in the regular season.
In 2006-07, Yao missed 32 games after breaking his right leg and suffered a stress fracture in his left foot in 2007-08, underwent surgery and sat out 26 games.
Yao hurried back from that foot injury to represent China in the Beijing Games. He made it through the Rockets’ season and the first round of the playoffs before breaking his left foot.
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