The Rockets did a great job of posting letters on their Web site that some Rockets execs and owner Leslie Alexander wrote to Yao thanking him for his time as a Rocket. I bet it would be hard for anyone to get through reading these letters without getting a little teary-eyed. I’m sure Yao would.

Check ’em out here, but make sure you have some Kleenex nearby. All of us would be lucky to receive letters from colleagues that are anything close to these when we retire.

On Wednesday, Yao posted on his Facebook page the following message to his American fans, especially those in Houston:

Special thanks to my friends overseas, especially to fans in Houston. I would like to thank you for giving me great nine years during my NBA career. Nine years ago I came to Houston as a young, tall, skinny player, and the entire city and the team changed me to a grown man, not only a basketball player. I will always be with you, thank you!

In Houston, Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle filed an interesting article about some of the Rockets’ front office reactions to Yao officially retiring on Wednesday.

Owner Leslie Alexander:

“It’s sad. He had such great potential. He fulfilled it, really, but we would have been a great team with him. It’s sad for him because I know he wants to play very badly. It’s sad for the Rockets.”

Rockets’ CEO Tad Brown:

“I’m still kind of in shock, actually. I can’t imagine the Rockets without Yao Ming. I’m sad. I’m really disappointed for Mr. Alexander and the franchise, but I’m hoping Yao is at peace with his decision and certainly look forward to being in his life.

“I look forward to having him be a part of the Rockets family for years to come. He’s larger than life. He’s a global icon. He’s going to continue to be in his retirement. It’s going to be exciting to see what the future holds for such an intelligent, proud man.”

Yao Ming made it official today in Shanghai today that he is retiring. You can read the transcript below, and check out all the photos from the press conference by clicking here.

In a surprising twist given the strictness from the NBA regarding teams communicating with its players during the lockout, Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey attended the press conference. There was speculation that even in retirement, the Rockets could not speak with Yao, even after he officially retired. It’s good to see the NBA lightened up a bit for this important occasion, with even David Stern wishing Yao well through a statement.

Esteemed Director Li Yuyi, distinguished guests, friends in the media.

Read the rest of this entry »

Reporter Gene Wang of the Washington Post contacted YaoMingMania the other day about an article he was putting together regarding Yao’s influence on basketball and the NBA. The article went live a few hours ago, which you can check out here.

It’s interesting that Yao Ming has been making some public appearances while everyone is obviously curious if he’s going to officially announce his retirement during his July 20th press conference.

On Tuesday in Beijing, Yao made an appearance together with a group of famous actors, singers and athletes, including Jackie Chan, Jay Chou, Song Zuying, Han Hong, Li Yuchun, Lin Dan and Wang Nan in an evening variety show at the People’s Great Hall in a massive cross strait youth exchange program involving over 10,000 youngsters from Taiwan and China. Yao gave basketballs with his autograph to 8 youngsters that happened to have their birthday on July 12.

For more photos from the event, click here.

On Wednesday, Yao appeared at the People’s Great Hall in Beijing to show his support at a press conference of a charity event organized by famous Chinese Tibet-born singer-songwriter Han Hong together with some other prominent government officials, including Zhang Haidi, Chairwoman of the China Disabled Persons’ Federation. International actress Zhang Ziyi was also there.

Yao was obviously the focus of the media as reporters tried to press for the latest development about the “rumor” of his retirement. But he refused to make any comments, and just politely asked the reporters to focus on Han Hong’s charity event.

For more details and photos about the event, click here.

Raymond just reported in the forum that Yao will hold a press conference on July 20th to announce his future career plans.

Based on this information, it’s pretty safe to say that Yao will make formal his retirement announcement during this press conference. If he wasn’t going to retire, you would expect that he would clear it up right away. But we’ll see…

Here’s the announcement in Chinese and English:

???????

2011?7?9? ?????????20????????????????????????????????????

To all reporters and friends, Ni Hao !!!

July 9, 2011 in Beijing.

Yao Ming will hold a press conference in Shanghai July 20th when he will talk about his future career plans.

Through our source Raymond in China, we have learned that Erik Zhang Mingji of “Team Yao” said today that Yao Ming has not yet decided to retire.

In addition, Lin Dalong, a Houston Rockets marketing manager who works in China, stated in an interview with the Xinhua News Agency said that the Houston Rockets had not received formal notice from Yao Ming or Team Yao about his retirement.

So there is a possibility that Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports, who broke the story earlier today, could be wrong. If so, this could be one of the most embarrassingly incorrect sports stories we have seen in a long time since all of the news networks and social media have been buzzing today about Yao’s alleged retirement today.

For the latest news updates on this story, make sure to follow us at Twitter.com/yaomingmania or Facebook.com/yaomania

Just got the news this afternoon that Yao Ming reportedly will be retiring. More info here at the Houston Chronicle.

Part of this isn’t a surprise, but part of it is. That’s because I thought he would at least wait until he could start training again, and with the lockout and NBA work stoppage looming for next season, he probably could have bought himself another 14-15 months before REALLY having to decide.

Perhaps after a year off and training, maybe there’s a chance he could make a comeback.

Oddly, because of the lockout, NBA.com nor any of the NBA team sites have photos of current players on their sites. So Rockets.com probably won’t have photos of Yao to commemorate his time with the team, until at least his retirement papers are officially filed with the NBA league office.

And because Yao is in China, there will probably be no press conference. It’s fitting that Yao, who never wanted to bring attention to himself, will have his career fade off into the sunset without any fanfare.

Shaquille O’Neal, who retired himself a few weeks ago, made the following statement:

“Yao will definitely be missed. He is in my mind one of the best centers ever to play. He is the one of the greatest athletes ever to come out of China, and I will miss him.”

On this page is a short video that Shaq posted telling Yao, among a few other things, “Let’s go on vacation, bro’, me and you.”

Here is a good tribute from Yahoo Sports’ Kelly Dwyer, and another one from Truehoop’s Henry Abbott.

As far as the future of YaoMingMania.com is concerned, we plan to continue running this site as always because of Yao’s influence that transcends sports. If you want to keep tabs on Yao news in the future without having to revisit this site, make sure to follow us on Twitter.com/yaomingmania and on Facebook.com/yaomania.

Yao is in Athens for some of the Special Olympics (he’s a Global Ambassador for the Games), which just started this past weekend. Raymond has posted some great pics in the forum.

Former Rockets’ teammate Dikembe Mutombo is in Athens, too, since he’s a Global Ambassador for the Games. Both Yao and Deke played a little friendly game of one-on-one on Saturday.

Click here for more photos of Yao and Deke together.

Later, Yao participated in the Opening Ceremony of the Games.

Click here for some impressive photos from the Opening Ceremony.

The next day (Sunday), Yao went to go cheer on the Chinese Special Olympics basketball team.

For more photos of Yao’s activities on Sunday, click here.

Yao had some fun in Beijing earlier in the week when he was filmed for a promotional spot for China National Fitness Day (to be held August 8th), which also marks the third anniversary of the opening of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Raymond reports in the forum that Yao lost badly to the boy because Yao is just too tall for the sport, as you can see in the photos below!

For more photos from the table tennis match, click here.

Also earlier in the week, Yao was invited as a special observer to Shanghai Oriental TV’s semifinal of China’s Got Talent show (a licensed spin-off of Britain’s Got Talent) in the People’s Great Hall in Beijing on Sunday and Monday (June 19/20).

Click here for more photos and details of Yao at the show.