Citing his decision to quit as ‘personal’, former Houston Rockets star center and National Basketball Association (NBA) legend Yao Ming has resigned as chairman of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) after seven years in the job.

But basketball aficionados believe Yao’s resignation as an offshoot of his outspoken warning regarding that China’s national team will have to face ‘realities’ and will struggle to qualify for future Olympics because of the ‘huge gap’ with the world’s best.

The 44-year-old 7-foot-6 (2.29 meters) behemoth had branded China’s team as ‘slackers’ after it lost to the Philippines in the semi-finals of its home Asian Games in 2022 in Hangzhou. The Chinese settled for bronze after defeating Taiwan but it was far less than fans and Yao wanted.

China also flopped at the Fédération Internationale de Basketball (FIBA) World Cup, missing out on a qualifying spot in this year’s Olympic Games in Paris after losing four of their five games.

In yesterday’s meeting, the executive committee approved Yao’s application to resign and elected vice chairman Guo Zhenming as the new head of the CBA.

The committee quoted that Yao decided to quit “after careful consideration and based on considerations for the development of China’s basketball and personal planning.”

The executive members of the committee said that the national sport administration “expressed sincere gratitude” to Yao for his work.

“It is believed that Yao Ming has done a lot of fruitful work in building the foundation of bringing basketball to the masses . . . (and) improving the level of the national team,” they enthused.