Not only is it disheartening for the Houston Rockets that Yao Ming suffered a season-ending stress fracture in his foot and will miss the rest of the 2007-08 NBA season in the midst of their 11-game winning streak, but he is also questionable for the 2008 Olympics. And this isn’t just your regular run-of-the-mill Olympics either, this is the 2008 summer olympics in Beijing, China – Yao’s homeland.

For those that are unfamiliar, Yao Ming is China’s most famous and popular athlete and the thought of him missing the Olympics… well, sucks. Yao’s injury has such long-reaching implications – from the Houston Rocket’s playoff chase and title contention, his invaluable leadership and huge contributions to the potential success of the Chinese National Team, and just his overall presence means so much to China. It can be summed up by Yao Ming himself: “If I cannot play in the Olympics for my country, it would be the biggest loss of my career.”

There seems to be two options for Yao to heal; having surgery on the foot, or letting the foot heal up naturally in a cast and crutches. Either way will take four months for Yao to heal up completely. Yao needs to make a decision soon so he can start the healing process sooner. The good news is if Yao decides to have surgery on March 10th (or somewhere in that area) and his rehabilitation goes according to schedule, with the official competition not slated to start until August 9th, Yao will have almost two full months to get back into playing shape, and most importantly, back on Team China. “There is enough time for Yao to be ready in August. He will spend three months in bed and one month for basic rehabilitation, then he can play on the court,” said Qiao Wei, medical education director of Beijing University of Physical Education.

This will be the third straight season that the 27-year old, 7-6 Chinese center will have missed 15+ games in a season. After this season ends, Yao will have missed a total of 64 regular season games from 2005-08. Yao was averaging his 22.0 points and career highs in rebounds (10.8) and blocks (2.0).

Source: China worried Yao will Miss Olympics (Chicago Tribune), Olympic dream could fade with Yao’s foot injury (ChinaDaily), Injured Yao Ming to Play in the Olympics (Herald Sun), Kazlauskas prepares to move forward without injured Yao (Fiba.com), Rockets don’t expect Yao to rest this summer (Yahoo!)