Yao Ming ,born September 12, 1980 in Shanghai, China) is a professional basketball player who plays for the Houston Rockets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is currently the tallest player in the NBA, at 2.29 m (7 ft 6 in).

Yao, who was born in Shanghai, started playing for the Shanghai Sharks as a teenager, and played on their senior team for five years in the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA), winning a championship in his final year. He entered the 2002 NBA Draft, and after negotiating with the CBA and the Sharks to secure his release, was selected by the Houston Rockets as the first overall pick of the draft. He has since been selected to start for the Western Conference in the NBA All-Star Game in all seven of his seasons, and has been named to the All-NBA Team five times. However, the Rockets have advanced past the first round of the playoffs only once since he joined the team, and he has missed significant time due to injury in each of the past four seasons.
Yao is married to Ye Li, a former player for the China women's national basketball team. He is one of China's best-known athletes, with sponsorships with several major companies, and he has been the richest celebrity in China for six straight years. His rookie year in the NBA was the subject of a documentary film, The Year of the Yao, and he co-wrote, along with NBA analyst Ric Bucher, an autobiography titled Yao: A Life in Two Worlds.

Early life and CBA career
Yao was the only child of 6 ft 7 in (2.01 m) Yao Zhiyuan and 6 ft 3 in (1.90 m) Fang Fengdi,both of whom were former professional basketball players.At 11 pounds (5.0 kg), Yao weighed more than twice as much as the average Chinese newborn, and he grew to be 5 feet 5 inches (1.65 m) by age ten. At that age, he was examined by sports doctors, who predicted that he would grow to 7 feet 3 inches (2.20 m). Yao started playing basketball at age nine, and he went to a junior sports school at the same age.

Yao first tried out for the Shanghai Sharks junior team of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) when he was 13 years old, and practiced for 10 hours a day to make the team. After playing with the junior team for four years, Yao joined the senior team of the Sharks at age 17, and averaged 10 points and 8 rebounds a game in his rookie season. However, his next season was cut short when he broke his foot for the second time in his career, which Yao said decreased his jumping ability by four to six inches (10 to 15 cm). The Sharks made the finals of the CBA in Yao’s third season and again the next year, but lost both times to the Bayi Rockets. When Wang Zhizhi left the Bayi Rockets to become the first NBA player from China the following year, the Sharks finally won their first CBA championship. During the playoffs in his final year with Shanghai, Yao averaged 38.9 points and 20.2 rebounds a game, while shooting 76.6% from the field, and made all 21 of his shots during one game in the finals.

Entering the NBA Draft
Yao was pressured to enter the NBA Draft in 1999 by Li Yaomin, the deputy general manager of the Shanghai Sharks.Li also influenced Yao to sign a contract for Evergreen Sports Inc. to serve as his agent. The agreement entitled Evergreen to 33% of Yao's earnings, but the contract was later determined to be invalid.

When Yao decided to enter the 2002 NBA Draft, a team of advisers was formed that would collectively come to be known as “Team Yao”. The team consisted of Yao’s negotiator, Erik Zhang; his NBA agent, Bill Duffy; his Chinese agent, Lu Hao; University of Chicago economics professor John Huizinga;and the vice president for marketing at BDA Sports Management, Bill Sanders. Yao was widely predicted to be picked number one overall. However, some teams were concerned about Yao's NBA eligibility due to uncertainty over whether the CBA would let Yao play in the United States.

Shortly after Wang Zhizhi refused to return to China to play for the national team and was subsequently banned from playing for China, the CBA stipulated that Yao would have to return to play for the national team. They also said they would not let him go to the United States unless the Houston Rockets would take him first overall. After assurances from Team Yao that the Rockets would draft Yao with their number one pick, the CBA gave permission on the morning of the draft for Yao to play in the U.S.When the Rockets selected Yao with the first pick of the draft, he became the first international player ever to be selected first overall without having previously played U.S. college basketball.