After deciding to call it a career after just eight injury-plagued seasons in the NBA, it is without question that former Houston Rockets superstar Yao Ming will forever be one of the biggest what-if's of the sport. At just 30 years of age, Yao was forced to retire from the league after a slew of injuries that appeared to have been getting worse as the years went by.

Nevertheless, despite his short-lived career in the NBA, there is also no doubt that Yao was and continues to be one of the most influential figures in the world of basketball. In 2002, he was the first ever Chinese-born player to be selected first overall in the NBA Draft, and instantly, his fame skyrocketed both within and outside US borders.

In his eight seasons in the league, the 7-foot-6 giant averaged 19.0 points (on 52.4 percent shooting), 9.2 rebounds, 1.6 assists, and 1.9 blocks per contest. However, his influence goes far beyond his numbers, especially if you take into consideration how he virtually opened the door for the NBA to enter the Chinese market.

When Yao was drafted in the league, the whole nation of China went crazy for what was an historic milestone for their nation in the basketball sense. This presented itself as a tremendous opportunity for the NBA, with the league looking to enter the country's one billion strong market.

The NBA knew what was at stake here, and at that point, they did everything in their power to seize the precious opportunity that was at hand. No less than two years after Yao joined the league, the NBA became the first American professional sports league to play in Chinese soil. Yao and his Rockets played a couple of preseason games in China, which allowed for a further exponential growth in the popularity of the league in the basketball-crazed nation.

The NBA never looked back, and has since been very active in maintaining its strong market presence in China. For his part, Yao, now at 39, continues to be a league ambassador — among all the other things he keeps himself busy with nowadays — not only in his home nation of China, but throughout the rest of the world as well. Yao has been known to be a staunch supporter of the league's global initiative to promote and develop the sport of basketball in all six continents, through its Basketball Beyond Borders campaign.

Moreover, it can be said that the level of success — albeit brief — Yao achieved in the NBA also opened the door for other aspiring Asian athletes to take their talents to the US. There isn't exactly a long list of Asian basketball players that have made it in the NBA, and even less, if any (Jeremy Lin comes to mind, but technically, he was born and raised in the US), who have truly made their mark in the league.

Nonetheless, Yao's amazing talent has certainly opened the eyes of NBA scouts to the potential gold mine of talent in Asia. Hopefully, the league continues to diversify within the next few years, and we begin to see more Asian players in the league.