Rockets Retiring Yao Ming's Jersey

Yao Ming，the man who sent the NBA to new heights in China was recognized by the city, Houston, and by his team, the Houston Rockets.

The Houston Rockets feted Hall of Famer Yao Ming on Friday, retiring the ground-breaking star’s jersey in an emotional halftime ceremony during their 121-117 overtime win over the Chicago Bulls.（China Daily）

Twitter appears a tag #ThankYouYao which show the grateful feelings of American fans. During the grand ceremony which is nationally televised, the Houston Rockets owner Leslie Alexander called Friday night "a great moment in Rocket history, to honor a man of such magnitude" and described Yao as "a really great basketball player."

"Yao was a really, really great player. I wanted him to be viewed as more than that, as an ambassador to the world and especially into China, and what a great person and humanitarian he is," said Alexander, who donated 100,000 U.S. dollars to the Yao Ming Foundation.

Lots of netizen also prased Yao a lot

“Even Yao as a person is awesome. Not a crackhead, no speeding tickets, no drunk rages, no several baby mommas, no sex scandals, no nothing. 

The extent of how he's helped Chinese basketball (Asian basketball in general) is admirable and would get him into the HOF even without his out of this world combination of physique and talent. Truly one of the best centers of the 00s. Even fresh off a 3 peat Shaq had a hard time against rookie Yao."

By the way, do not buy counterfeit jersey, since it do both bad to the team and Yao.