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ADRIAN WOJNAROWSKI: I'll always remember Yao Ming on that 2008
night in Beijing.
A stoic, pained face, hobbling off
the court with a triumphant fist thrust
into the air as though to say, I did it.
Here was a start of those Olympic Games in his homeland.
And one of the globe's truly seminal basketball
figures, 7 foot 6, a body crumbling.
And Yao had gone the distance to participate in those Olympic
Games.
In so many ways he had no choice.
He never had a choice.
From the Chinese government and sports machine, to the NBA,
to the league's biggest superstars and endorsers,
on the floor in that China versus USA game,
Yao had pushed and pushed for everyone else's benefit.
Here was the moment his worlds collided, where we could truly
witness the magnitude of the connection
that he created between East and West.
"Yao built the bridge for all of us,"
Kobe Bryant said that night.
Yao was one of the greatest, most dominant forces
the game has ever known.
And it will forever be the NBA's loss
that his legs and feet couldn't sustain his frame and the way
with which his character and legacy and resonance
buoyed him.
On All-Star weekend in Toronto, Yao will almost assuredly
be voted for enshrinement into the Naismith Basketball
Hall of Fame.
He is an immortal, even if he only played 250 or so games
in his final six seasons with the Houston Rockets,
even if he had to retire less than nine years
into his career.
In every way, Yao was bigger than life,
bigger than the game.
The Hall of Fame has been awaiting his arrival.
He belongs.
I'm Adrian Wojnarowski with "The Vertical."