Yao Ming is a fan favorite for millions of NBA fans around the world, and he is the last player to make an All-Star Game in every season of his career. He probably won’t be joining anyone anytime soon.
On July 20, 2011, Yao Min retired after eight seasons after battling multiple foot and ankle injuries throughout his entire NBA career.
His career average is solid with 19 points and 9.2 rebounds, making him known as the best Chinese basketball player of all time. During his career, he formed an All-Star team in every season, joining legends Paul Alizine, Bob Pettit, Jerry West and Julius Irving as one of the only players to achieve that feat.
Throughout Ming’s career, the All-Star roster was determined by fan voting. Not only is Houston one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country, but China has been the most populous country in the world since the start of such documents until 2023, and Ming has been the most popular player.
In 2005 and 2006, Ming led all players with fan votes. In 2009, the league began accepting text and online voting, as well as traditional paper voting, so Ming’s 2.6 million votes in 2005 were most of the people who voted for internet pre-voting between 1975 and 2009.
At Ming’s peak between 2003 and 2008, he averaged 19.4 points and 9.4 rebounds on a star basis per game, and certainly would have made the All-Star Game on merit alone, especially since Rocket was a playoff staple in the meantime.
In his first season, he was still voted, but he was still voted, but in his final season he played only five games, while fans heard them, but he only played five games.
Ming is probably the last player to make an All-Star game in every season of his career.
In the modern NBA, fan votes have been significantly reduced since 2017. Coaches choose reserve players, but fans have a say in the starters only. As a result, players who missed the first half due to injuries are rarely considered, and legends like LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Luka Donsic and even Victor Wenbagnama have already missed at least one All-Star game in their careers.
Ming, who was often the only active Chinese player in the league in his career, benefited from millions (if not billions) of voters. During his rookie season, the NBA sent out votes in Spanish, Chinese and English to help the game grow.
Young people like Cooper Flag could be a rare rookie to make an All-Star Game, but he needs to stay healthy throughout his career and He retires before he becomes a second or third rating player, but this is unrealistic. Had Ming had a full career, he might have seen his popularity decline or hurt due to the 2017 vote changes.
It needed the best situation for Ming to make eight All-Star games and the support of the world’s largest nation. Modernaster doesn’t have the same luxury. The list of career All-Star players is expected to remain only five.