One of my favorite professional athletes made it official this week. Yao Ming has retired from playing basketball. In the end his career was never as great as it could have been, but it was pretty astounding nonetheless.

He came into the league as a 7’6” question mark. Many experts thought he would be a huge bust. Chinese kids like me were rooting for him to not embarrass us. And he didn’t! When Charles Barkley said he would kiss Kenny Smith’s ass if Yao ever scored 19 points, the big man from China responded by putting up 20 against the Lakers. (Barkley ended up bringing in a donkey on-camera to kiss instead of Smith.)

When he was healthy, Yao was capable of putting up dominant performances. He didn’t miss a single shot in the 2009 playoffs against Portland in Game 1. He was able to hold ground against Shaq and he often befuddled Dwight Howard.

All the while he was leading the way for the NBA to become more and more popular in China, and he was doing it with humor and style. Yao Ming has had more funny quotes in sports stories in his second language than most NBA players have in their first.

Finally, his frame proved too big to sustain the wear and tear of the game. His body failed him even though his game and mind didn’t. If you factor in his global impact, I’d say Yao deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. He will be missed.