UPDATE 4:20 pm: Yao Ming released this statement after his surgery.
The surgery was deemed successful. Yao sounds less confident about his plans here, but this is a public statement in which it would be smart to leave his options open. There are still the reports (listed below) that say his goal is to return.
1:04 pm: Yao Ming had another surgery today, this one to repair a fracture in his left ankle.
There is no timetable for a return — but he does want to return, according to Marc Spears of Yahoo, who broke the story on twitter.
Yao was previously diagnosed with a stress fracture in his left ankle, an injury that was expected to keep him out for the season. That after he missed all of last season following foot surgery.
Yao has been discussed in trades because he has a massive, $17 million expiring contract. However, nothing has yet come of that, and even if a team did trade for him they may well not want to re-sign him.
Yao said last summer he might just walk away from the game if he couldn’t get healthy, but now he sounds like he wants to give it one more shot. That may well be somewhere other than Houston — the only franchise he has ever known in the Association — but anyone showing interest in him would be taking a flyer.
Not a lot of players would have the desire and determination to continue doing all this rehab work to get back on the court. Yao, however, is not your average player. One thing he has always had is a fantastic work ethic. And he’s apparently not ready to give up on the game just yet.