Yao has been in Houston the past week, and he’s sticking around through All-Star weekend festivities. Yesterday he had lunch with the massive defensive lineman for the Houston Texans, J.J. Watt, who also was the NFL Defensive Player of the Year this past season.

If you have forgotten how big Yao is, check out this photo of him next to J.J., who is 6’5″, 295 pounds! (from Watt’s Twitter feed yesterday)…

Here’s what J.J. tweeted…

Yao made his second appearance at Toyota Center this week, showing up courtside to cheer his former team to victory. We’ve got more photos here in the forum.

As many long time readers of this site have known, I have limited myself over the years to not accept commercial opportunities. Sure, I have ads that run on the site, but they really aren’t that intrusive.

But there is one company that I have recently accepted as a sponsor that I thought was worth creating a special blog post for. It’s because they have a product I think can help many shoppers (like myself) who want to buy a unique gift for the special women or men in their life.

It’s called the PamBee, which is a combination of a travel blanket, pillow, pillowcase and eyemask that all folds up into the size of a laptop. So it doesn’t take valuable carry-on space the airlines limit you from using on the plane.

The PamBee was designed by a flight attendant who went above and beyond to use materials that are much better than the travel blankets the airlines provide…er, when they did provide them back in the day. The fabrics are silky soft and smooth, and are even machine washable. And the PamBee comes in 5 different styles to fit any taste, even a man’s.

They also offer monogramming and gift wrapping. And for a limited time, they are offering a special discount through the holidays, and have free shipping that can you get a PamBee in 2-3 business days anywhere in the U.S.!

Thanks for supporting this special sponsor of ours!

Although Yao has been retired for about 6 months, he is not forgotten as seen by this video that is getting some play around the Interwebs…

Click here for more about the artist and the project.

Hot off the press here.

Have you ever been frustrated with bad ref calls in NBA games? Now there’s a place for you to read analysis on bad ref calls (and good calls) from every NBA game, and vent if you feel your team got robbed by the refs! Checkout RefCalls.com!

Also check out their sister site TopFlops.com where they feature the worst and funniest flops by NBA players from each game. The video on their site is quite hilarious!

Now that Yao is off crutches, he has been able to get out more often. On Wednesday night, he appeared at the Rockets’ game against the Warriors to cheer his teammates on.

Click here for more photos of Yao at the Rockets-Warriors game.

Then on Thursday, Yao appeared at Toyota Center along with other Rocket teammates to thank season ticket holders for their patronage.

Click here for more photos of Yao at the season ticket holder event.

Yao also told reporters that he will be traveling with the team on their next road trip when they play Miami, Philadelphia and New Jersey. This road trip is obviously huge since it will have a big bearing on if the Rockets make the playoffs or not, so it’s good to see that Yao will be supporting his teammates even though he isn’t required to go.

Yahoo Sports’ “Ball Don’t Lie” blog threw alot of love today at Chuck Hayes by writing an entire post about his triple-double last night. It’s an interesting read. They analyze various players’ stats to determine if it was the most improbable triple-double in NBA history. Check it out here.

All of this brings to mind what Yao had said last summer when after working out with Hayes, was very impressed with Chuck’s improved offensive skills. Looks like Yao knew first that Chuck was on his way to do some special things this season.

As you all know, Yao Ming is in the process right now of deciding what he’s going to do with his basketball future after learning about the stress fracture in his ankle last week. Since he’s out for the season, and there’s a chance that Yao may retire, I’ve been doing my own thinking and have decided that I won’t be posting many updates after Rocket games this season.

I know most of you have come to this site to get updates on Yao, not really on the Rockets. If you did come to get Rocket news, it was under the auspices that it would be good to know what’s going on with the team before Yao returns to the team. Now that Yao’s future is in doubt, I’ll be holding off on frequent Rocket updates, but will continue to post here updates about Yao’s health and general news about him. If you were planning on coming back to the site to read my updates about the Rockets even with Yao hurt, please send me an email at johnb [at] yaomingmania [dot] com so I can get a good understanding of what readers of this site expected.

In the meantime, I will continue to watch all of the Rocket games because I’m a big fan of the team, and if Yao decides to return to basketball and the Rockets, I will crank up my Rocket updates (assuming he signs a new contract with them if he does return to the NBA). Occasionally I may weigh in on major Rocket news and issues, but I’m going to take this time to focus on another NBA-oriented venture I am launching.

I suggest if you want to stay abreast of all the Yao news that’s sure to come, I invite you to keep coming back to the site, or you can become a “fan” of my YaoMania Facebook page where you can see on your Facebook wall when I update this site with new information about Yao.

Looking ahead, there’s one thing I encourage all of you to checkout that can help me out in return for all the work I put into the site over the past 8 years. I have become an affiliate of an awesome Facebook marketing curriculum called “Crowd Conversion” from a Facebook marketing guru named Robert Grant. Robert was nice enough to provide some good advice to Yao’s marketing team on how Yao could best use his Facebook page to advance his charity efforts. If any of you have been thinking of advancing your business or causes on Facebook, I encourage you to checkout Robert’s program by clicking here and consider becoming a customer starting with the link above.

Hopefully this won’t be the end of Yao’s career in basketball. Make sure to come back to this site, or become a fan of the YaoMania Facebook page for more news and updates on all things Yao.

Thanks!
John

I know most of the coverage of Yao the past week was mainly about his charity gala on Sunday, March 28th. But other things were going on in Yao’s world this week.

Yao’s Shanghai MAXXIS Sharks, the team he purchased before the season began, made the semifinals for the first time in eight years, beating the Liaoning Panpan Hunters in overtime last week. Yao watched the game from Houston on his computer early in the morning.

Former Rocket John Lucas III was outstanding, scoring 41 points in the game (12-of-25 FGs, 6-of-10 3-pointers, 11-12 from the line). Liu Wei, Yao’s best friend, scored 36 points on 15-of-24 shooting, and 5-of-8 from three).

You can tell by the photos below that the win was a big deal for the Sharks, who were “rock bottom” in the China Basketball Association last season and weren’t expected to do this well this season with a new and unproven coach.

Liu Wei

John Lucas III

Click here for more photos from the post-game celebration.

The Sharks are now playing the defending champions, the Guangong Hongyuan Dongguan Bank Tigers in the semifinals. Over the weekend, the Sharks lost Game 1 110-106. Former NBA player Smush Parker scored 40 points. Game Two is Wednesday in Dongguan, then the series goes to Shanghai.

Last Tuesday, Yao attended the Rockets-Wizards game at Toyota Center, and once again, was joined on the bench with the walking wounded: Shane Battier, David Anderson, Jared Jeffries, and Kevin Martin.