NBA legend Yao Ming to lead China basketball body, aiming at reforms

2016 class of inductees into the Basketball Hall of Fame, Yao Ming of China speaks during a press conference at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, on September 8, 2016. Chinese basketball star Yao Ming and his Class of 2016 Hall of Fame made their debut Thursday with orange inductee jackets for the upcoming Enshrinement Ceremony in Springfield, Massachusetts. The enshrinement ceremony will be held on September 9, 2016. [Photo: Xinhua/Wang Ying]

Yao Ming, former Houston Rockets player and NBA Hall of Fame member, has been elected as the new president of the Chinese Basketball Association(CBA).

Yao, 37, became the first-ever non-governmental personage to take the position.

The move, on Thursday, is being seen as an effort by China's sports authority to bring about reforms to Chinese basketball.

Yao Ming now serves as the vice president of CBA company, and is one of the investors in the Shanghai basketball team.

He has been actively advocating reforms for years, aiming at professionalization and a better business mode for the game.

Under Yao's management, it is anticipated that the new CBA president may limit the numbers of foreign players. Yao Ming once compared the introduction of foreign players with putting eagles in a small cage which is already full of birds.

Foreign players and less intense games are commonly considered to unhelpful to the growth of Chinese native players in the league. Meanwhile violence and profanity remain rife on and off the court.

Meanwhile, with successful experience in the NBA, many consider it a big plus for Yao Ming when it comes the training of professional players and the creation of a proper league system.

China's two national basketball teams have not performed well in international games in recent years.

Neither of them got to the final stage in the last Olympics basketball games in Rio de Janeiro.

Both teams are also in urgent needs of finding head coaches, with the home hosted 2019 FIBA World Cup just two years away, not to mention the 2020 Tokyo Olympics a year later.

However, other voices such as commentators at the Xinhua news agency had questioned Yao Ming's new post, claiming that Yao lacks administrative experience and is too young to be competent.