Honeymoon Dance to the Golden Age | DAILY SPORTS SELECT

"Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

- Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) to Captain Renault (Claude Rains) in Casablanca (1942)

I'm not going to spoil the movie for you, but the quote above is the final line from the timeless classic Casablanca.

The words speak for themselves, and who knows what really happened between Rick and Renault after what was said, but I think there could be a parallel between Yao Ming - he of the injury-plagued career - and his team, the Houston Rockets.

It seems like Yao has been in the NBA forever, but when you think about it, he's still only 28. His feet, which have borne the wear and tear of supporting his 7-6, 310 lb frame, may be a lot older, but Yao's latest foot injury could be a blessing in disguise - so long as it doesn't catastrophically end the big man's career.

It could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship between Yao Ming and the Houston Rockets.

In 1970, the year he was to turn 30, Bruce Lee severely injured his back during a workout. He was practically immobilized for six months before he started training and teaching again. Amazingly, it was during this period of inactivity that Bruce Lee would write the manuscripts that would eventually become the philosophy that would revolutionize modern martial arts : the Tao of Jeet Kune Do.

Even more astonishingly, Lee produced his finest work, including Enter the Dragon (1973), after his comeback. Lee's post-injury work is how most of us remember his martial arts legend.

Another kung fu icon, Jackie Chan, made some of his most challenging movies post-30, and a slew of injuries already to his credit.

One such film was Police Story, in which during the pole-slide scene Jackie "almost paralyzed" himself when he "nearly broke the seventh and eighth vertebrae" in his spine.

Jackie also happened to burn his hands, dislocate his pelvis and get electrocuted during the scene. And it never ceases to amaze me how a 40-year old could move like he did in Drunken Master II.

Players like Yao Ming, the ones who rely on taking advantage of the subtle nuances of the game, are like a fine wine : They get better as they age. When they have aged to perfection, they help you win championships, or at least come close to it.

That's why I think Yao Ming and the Houston Rockets should become like a band, if not lovers. Until it's proven definitely that their bandleader cannot continue due to drug addiction or that their lover can no longer perform due to sexual dysfunction, everyone needs to be patient.

Even if Yao misses the entire 2009-10 season after having, in the words of Ric Bucher, "an aggressive surgical procedure that eliminates or downgrades the chances of this happening again," if he comes back healthier and sturdier than ever, it will be worth the wait. It may even turn out that the first seven years of the Yao-Rockets relationship was just a prelude to doing business, a honeymoon dance to the Golden Age.

I've been impressed by Yao's strength of character ever since he came into the NBA, and I'm sure, like Bruce Lee, he'll find alternative methods of improving his game while he's immobilized.

And if, in the meantime, general manager Daryl Morey continues to build the overall team and ownership the support system that will help their franchise player maximize his on-court production, then the championship dream will not die.

It may just be realized in a different form.