Sean Deveney

Just try to keep your lunch here. Last December, at the Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center in Houston, the big toe on Yao Ming's left foot was split open, the fleshy bottom part separated from the top, essentially free to flap in the breeze. It had been sliced open around the side by the Rockets' chief physician, Tom Clanton, who had to open the toe in order to clear out an infection called osteomyelitis.

The infection had its roots in a hit Yao had taken eight weeks earlier, when the seemingly routine injury caused his toenail to come off. (The injury seemed so minor at first that Yao joked of the nail, "I'm thinking of putting it on eBay.") Back at the doctor's office, the flesh exposed, Clanton proceeded to scrape the infection off the bone before sewing the toe back up. That little piggy went to the butcher.

No wonder, then, that there was much concern in Houston when Yao faced another problem with the toenail this preseason. No wonder he now wears a specially designed sneaker from Reebok with a reinforced toe area. No wonder, too, that the first thing Yao says after coming out of a postgame shower, barefoot, to chat with the media is, "Watch out for the toe." Uh, yeah.

The toe cost Yao 21 games last season, part of an outbreak of injuries -- to All-Star forward Tracy McGrady, to starting point guard Rafer Alston, to starting shooting guard David Wesley and to backup guard Bob Sura -- that forced the Rockets to suit up 22 players and crippled the team's season. But it was not just the Rockets' record that was tarnished by the injuries. Something big was going on in Houston last season, but because the team was 34-48 and 10 games out of the Western Conference's playoff picture, few noticed: Yao finally had exceeded the hype that preceded the 2002 draft, when he was the No. 1 overall selection, and had become an NBA elite player. He was, by season's end, the best center in the game (and yes, that does include Shaquille O'Neal).

Yao's breakthrough, when he averaged 25.7 points and 11.6 rebounds after the All-Star break, was hidden, but his early performance this season has been in broad view. Even with McGrady healthy, Yao has been the team's dominant player; he leads the Rockets in scoring (25.6 points per game) and rebounding (9.8 per game), and McGrady has morphed into a self-described playmaker. In a head-to-head matchup against the 34-year-old O'Neal in November, Yao scored 34 points to O'Neal's 15, the 19 points being the largest margin by which O'Neal has been outscored by an opposing center in his career, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

McGrady believes Yao has surpassed O'Neal and notes, "I know Shaq's still around, but the way Yao is rolling, no one is playing better than him." Houston broadcaster and Hall of Famer Clyde Drexler is a bit more diplomatic: "Yao certainly belongs in the conversation with Shaq." Timberwolves broadcaster and NBA veteran Jim Petersen puts it bluntly: "Yao Ming is the best center right now in the NBA. I don't think there is any doubt about that."

After watching Yao lay 36 points on his team early in the season, Mavericks coach Avery Johnson said, "When we double-teamed him, triple-teamed him or single-covered him, he would still score. He was playing like we were not even out on the floor."

Because Yao has raised his scoring average 7.3 points in just two seasons, his emergence is portrayed as sudden. Not so. Yao's numbers over his first three years were excellent for an NBA newcomer, especially a big man: 16.4 points and 8.5 rebounds. What changed for Yao over the past two years was far from sudden. It was tedious, in fact, and it occurred off the NBA's courts. Far, far off the NBA's courts.

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In the summers after his first two seasons, Yao was required to return home to China for preparation with the national team, a situation that prevented him from doing any real NBA work. But, beginning in 2005 and again in the summer of 2006, Chinese officials eased up on demands for Yao's time. When he had ankle surgery two summers ago, he was allowed to recuperate in Houston and spend time working with Rockets trainers and coaches. That summer, Chinese officials also allowed assistant coach Tom Thibodeau and trainer David Macha to go to Shanghai to work with Yao around the two-a-day practices that made up national team training.

"That was very important to me," Yao says. "We were able to do a lot of work that I was not normally able to do on my post moves and my conditioning. It is paying off."