Yao Ming won't be gingerly moving up and down the court, stepping like any stumble could be the last one he gets in basketball in the near future. Instead, the Houston Rockets franchise player will be in his more familiar uniform — a designer suit.

The Rockets revealed Friday afternoon (first reported in a Houston Chronicle tweet) that Yao has a bone bruise in his sprained left ankle and will need several more weeks on top of the nine days he's been sidelined already. So the 3-8 Rockets — a team that shows its desperate need for a star nightly — limp on.

The question is: How much longer will Yao?

He talked about retirement this summer when he was in China in two different interviews weeks apart. Then, he returned to Houston and suddenly stopped mentioning the R word (it's easy to imagine the Rockets brass asking him to tone that down). There's no denying that walking away has already seriously crossed Yao's mind.

The Rockets can maintain that Yao's current injury is relatively minor, swear that it has nothing to do with his fragile, frequently-fracturing feet all they want. The bottom line is that the 7-foot-6 center has been betrayed by his huge body again and no one is more aware of this miserable reality than Yao.

He enjoyed a relatively successful start to this season, played better than anyone could have realistically expected in the opener, received way too much criticism for the Rockets poor start (the idea that the Yao Restrictions were holding Houston coach Rick Adelman back is comical). Common sense (not to mention his contract) would dictate Yao has to give it another try this season. But beyond 2010-11?

When Rockets general manager Daryl Morey signed Brad Miller, to that three-year contract in the offseason, he probably didn't think he had his starting center for the near future. Houston fans sure hoped not.

Yao will be a free agent this summer and in his less guarded moments, in those interviews in his first language, he more and more sounds like someone who wants to walk away. Sure, some team (and the Rockets would be first in line) will offer Yao millions just to sit on its bench and be a global marketing draw if it came to that.

This isn't your typically NBAer who needs to hang on for every check though. With his status in China, Yao will never have trouble getting paid as a coach, an executive, a big-man mentor, a whatever he wishes.

The pain in his pride — let along the pain in his feet — makes the complete end of Yao as a player look closer than ever.