Houston Rockets' Yao Ming: If Not for Injuries, Would He Be an All-Time Great?

After Yao Ming's latest foot injury, it is becoming more and more clear that Yao is never going to be the same center again. An All-Star every year he was healthy, many wonder what Yao's career could have been had been had he avoided the injury bug. 

Could he have become the next Bill Russell? Hakeem Olajuwon?

To take a look at what he could have been, we'll take him apart one section at a time—offense, defense and intangibles.

Offense

Coming into the league, nobody was quite sure what to expect from Yao on the offensive end. Some expected him to become a solid inside force because of his incredible height while others thought that he was nothing more than a tall string bean. 

Charles Barkley, a man who knows a little bit about basketball himself, even famously declared that Yao would not score 19 points in a single game his entire rookie season. 

While it came relatively slowly, Yao became one of the top offensive big men in the game. With a bevy of post moves, Yao was a polished scorer on the block earlier than most big men are, but most important to his success was his sweet shooting touch.

Because of his height, Yao could get off a jumper almost any time he wanted to. When the mid-range jumpers were falling, Yao was unstoppable because he could simply spin toward the baseline in a move reminiscent of Hakeem Olajuwon's "Dream Shake." Pairing this touch with a solid stroke at the free-throw line allowed Yao to post more than 20 points per game for three injury-shortened seasons in a row. 

While he was the league's best offensive center at one point, even while healthy Yao could not compare to the best of all time for one reason: mobility. His greatest strength, his size, was also his greatest weakness on the offensive end.

Because he was so big, he was an immobile, sedentary being in the post capable of being taken out of the game by a simple fronting tactic. Yao often struggled to beat smaller players because when he was fronted, he did not have the quickness to spin for the alley-oop as Dwight Howard does so well today. 

He may have had one of the sweetest shooting touches of any player his size in NBA history, but calling him an all-time great on the offensive end if healthy would be an overstatement.

Defense

With his almost laughably large frame, Yao was expected to have an enormous effect on the defensive end through blocks in the paint. To a certain degree, Yao delivered.

Never establishing himself as a true dominant shot blocker, Yao still managed to average over two blocks a game throughout his career. As his body matured with age, Yao became a strong post defender as his monstrous legs kept opposing big men from backing him down.

However, once again Yao's biggest strength was also his undoing. Unlike Hakeem Olajuwon, who was capable of covering huge amounts of ground with swiftness, Yao's plodding nature precluded him from becoming a dominant defender.

Best utilized as a goaltender who rarely strayed from the paint and blocked shots from penetrators, Yao struggled immensely out on the perimeter. When faced with centers who could shoot, Yao was not able to get up on them because they could drive past him with ease with their more athletic frames.

Because of his inability to defend outside the paint and stay out of foul trouble, Yao never became an elite defender. Instead, he became someone who Rockets coaches often had to design schemes to protect, something all-time greats never needed.

Intangibles

Widely considered to be a soft player coming into the league, Yao has proven to NBA fans that he is anything but soft in his eight years in the league. 

While often pushed around in the post in his first few years, Yao built up strength and added a mean streak that would serve him well as time went along. At the end of games, Yao no longer deferred to teammates but demanded the ball. If a man scored on him, he began to feel the urge to hit back with a score of his own. As his mean streak developed, he elevated his play to a level he'd never reached.

Perhaps his toughness has been best exemplified by the way he's handled his injuries. After hitting knee to knee with Kobe Bryant in a crucial game one match up with the Lakers in 2009, Yao would head toward the locker room before shaking off trainer Keith Jones and returning to the court in Willis Reed fashion. 

Unfortunately, he's a frequent patron of hospitals as he has undergone more surgeries than seems humanly possible. Each time, as the prognosis seemed more and more pessimistic, Yao re-emerged.

So, had he avoided the injury bug, would Yao have been an all-time great? While it is impossible to tell for sure, the answer appears to be no. While he developed the mental makeup to be great over the years, he lacked the mobility to be an elite player on offense and defense.

While Yao is an exceptional ambassador for the NBA to China and a great player, he would not be an all-time great. He is, however, an all-time special person who deserves to be a Hall of Famer for his contributions off the court in addition to his on court play.