"Yao Ming didn't win championships like Hakeem Olajuwon or Most Valuable Player awards like Moses Malone.

And his name won't be brought up by future generations in discussions of the greatest basketball players of all time.

To some even, Yao's career ranks among the most disappointing in Houston sports history.

But that is a particularly unfair assessment of the groundbreaking athlete who has been forced to retire because his body can no longer stand the pounding.

Yao started dealing with unprecedented scrutiny even before he was selected No. 1 overall by the Rockets in the 2002 NBA draft. And unfortunately that continued throughout his career.

More than once Yao told me, "I'm just a regular person."

Each time he was wrong.

For the Rockets, he was asked to carry a legacy left by two of the game's best big men.

For the NBA, he was counted on to help globalize the game by attracting hundreds of millions of Chinese fans. For his homeland, he was expected to be the face of a changing culture more open to Western ideas than before.

He needed to succeed on and off the court or he would have been a huge disappointment to many.

Pioneers are faced with unique challenges.

Baby Boomers could never have imagined that in their lifetime someone born in China would be the first player taken in an NBA draft.

We have all come a long way."