In July 2011, Yao announced his retirement from professional basketball because of a series of foot and ankle injuries which forced him to miss 250 games in his last six seasons.

[9] With the national team, Yao won the FIBA Asia Cup in 2001, 2003, and 2005, winning MVP of the tournament all three times.

[18] Yao first tried out for the Shanghai Sharks' junior team of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) when he was 13 years old, and practiced ten hours a day for his acceptance.

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).

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.

[22] Yao was pressured to enter the NBA draft in 1999 by Li Yaomin, the deputy general manager of the Shanghai Sharks.

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;[25] and the vice president for marketing at BDA Sports Management, Bill Sanders.

[39] In Yao's first game in Miami on December 16, 2002, the Heat passed out 8,000 fortune cookies, an East Asian cultural stereotype.

[54] Yao received nearly a quarter million more votes than O'Neal, and he became the first rookie to start in the All-Star Game since Grant Hill in 1995.

[56] The Rockets made the playoffs for the first time in Yao's career, claiming the seventh seed in the Western Conference.

[69] The Rockets won 51 games and finished fifth in the West, and made the playoffs for the second consecutive year, where they faced the Dallas Mavericks.

[90] Three days later, the Rockets signed former Sacramento Kings coach Rick Adelman,[91] who was thought to focus more on offense than the defensive-minded Van Gundy.

[92][93] On November 9, 2007, Yao played against fellow Chinese NBA and Milwaukee Bucks player Yi Jianlian for the first time.

[97] Yao underwent a successful operation on March 3, which placed screws in his foot to strengthen the bone, and recovery time was estimated at four months.

After weeks of consulting, it was decided that Yao would undergo surgery in order to repair the broken bone in his left foot.

[114] On December 16, 2010, it was announced that Yao had developed a stress fracture in his left ankle, related to an older injury, and would miss the rest of the season.

[123] On September 9, 2016, Yao was inducted into the Hall of Fame along with 4-time NBA champion Shaquille O'Neal and Allen Iverson.

[125] Yao first played for China in the 2000 Summer Olympics, and he was dubbed, together with 7 ft (2.1 m) teammates Wang Zhizhi and Mengke Bateer, "the Walking Great Wall".

[126] During the 2004 Athens Olympics, Yao carried the Chinese flag during the opening ceremony, which he said was a "long dream come true".

[127] He then vowed to abstain from shaving his beard for half a year unless the Chinese national team made it into the quarter-finals of the 2004 Olympics.

In the final group game, however, a 67–66 win over the reigning 2002 FIBA World Champions Serbia and Montenegro moved them into the quarterfinals.

Yao scored 27 points and had 13 rebounds, and he hit two free throws with 28 seconds left that proved to be the winning margin.

Yao's injury at the end of the 2005–06 NBA season required a full six months of rest, threatening his participation in the 2006 FIBA World Championship.

[133] After having surgery to repair his fractured foot, Yao stated if he could not play in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, "It would be the biggest loss in my career to right now.

[146] After Yao announced that he would enter the 2002 NBA draft, he told one American journalist that he had been studying English for two years, and that he liked the movie Star Wars but disliked hip hop.

Ye was not fond of Yao at first, but finally accepted him after he gave her the team pins he had collected during the 2000 Summer Olympics.

[16] In a 2015 AMA post on Reddit, Yao stated that this was not true and that he started playing basketball for fun at age 9.

[174] On July 16, 2009, Yao bought his former club team, the Shanghai Sharks, which were on the verge of not being able to play the next season of the Chinese Basketball Association because of financial troubles.

He was joined by fellow NBA stars Steve Nash, Carmelo Anthony, and Baron Davis, and Hong Kong actor Jackie Chan.

Yao has filmed a number of public service announcements for elephant and rhino conservation for the "Say No" campaign with partners African Wildlife Foundation and WildAid.