Yao Ming (C) attends the ninth national congress of Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 23, 2017. Yao Ming, member of Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and former NBA all-star player, was voted as the president of the CBA here on Thursday. (Xinhua/Meng Yongmin)
Yao Ming was born in Shanghai in 1980 and began to play in the CBA at the age of 17. In 2002, he led the Shanghai Sharks to their first-ever league championship. In 1998, he was selected to the national team for the first time and played in three Olympic Games, two world championships, one Asian Games and four Asian championships over the course of his career.
As one of China's biggest sports icons, Yao landed in NBA in 2002 as the first-pick of the draft, playing for the Houston Rockets for 9 years and entering all-star games eight times. He also led the Chinese national team to the last eight at the Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008 editions of the Olympic Games.
In 2009, Yao bought the Shanghai Sharks, the CBA club where he played as a teenager. And last year, Yao was elected as the vice president of the newly-established CBA corporation in charge of the league's management and business development.
Since his retirement in 2011, Yao has been pursuing professional basketball reform in China.
