China lost to Nigeria on Sunday, thereby missing out on direct qualification to the Tokyo Olympics, and finishing 24th of 32 teams at the World Cup.

Yao fronted up to the media when asked who was responsible for the defeat and the poor showing on home soil. “Me,” he responded.

“The fans had high expectations at the World Cup but we failed to achieve the target,” Yao said. “It is me who disappointed the fans.”

It has not taken long for his time in charge of Chinese basketball to sour.

Just over a year ago, it was all smiles. Its teams had just pulled off a clean sweep of basketball golds at the Asian Games in Jakarta, winning the men’s and women’s finals in the five-on-five and three-on-three format.

In front of the four squads as they posed for celebratory photographs was Yao Ming, China’s NBA superstar-turned-head of the Chinese Basketball Association.

He had been appointed in February 2017 and a little over 18 months later, on September 1, it was all smiles on the court of the arena in Jakarta. A beaming Yao sat in front of the four Chinese teams that had won gold at the Asian Games, a clean sweep across the men’s and women’s three-on-three and five-on-five basketball.

This was proof that what was happening under Yao was the right path.

Yao had already been lauded nine months earlier when China beat South Korea with what was a second-string team in the World Cup preliminaries in November 2017.

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The former Houston Rocket had been installed in his role as chairman of the CBA in February 2017 and immediately set about implementing reforms of the system.

Chief among them was the introduction of a dual national team system of Team Red and Team Blue – essentially two China squads – under two different coaches, Li Nan and Du Feng. These then played in different international tournaments and it was this that led to the second stringers shining in Seoul. Yao was responsible for that.

Coach Li Nan led Team Red and the combined World Cup team. It was he who the crowd at their losses to Venezuela and Nigeria called for to be sacked. Li cut a forlorn figure in Sunday’s post-match press conference, praising his players’ “fight and willingness to compete” but appearing lost. “We can’t predict the future,” he said.

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Rising star Guo Ailun had said China’s goal was to win the World Cup. “Playing on our home turf, we definitely want to win the championship,” he said in an interview before the tournament.

Heads will surely roll after finishing 24th of the 32 teams at the World Cup and on home hardwood. Star player Yi Jianlian might be one of those to go, when asked about his future the 34-year-old curtly replied “I don’t what I am doing tomorrow”.

No one does. While Yao was apologetic, it’s unfair to pin the sorry state of Chinese basketball on him. Especially as the big man was responsible for the boom in basketball in the country after joining the NBA in 2002.

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Basketball has a long history in China. It was introduced to the country by missionaries just years after James Naismith invented the sport in 1891. By the mid-1930s it was regarded as a national sport and it remained popular even through the Communist revolution. Many even regarded it as a Chinese sport, unaware of its existence in the outside world.

That changed in 1987 when the NBA struck a deal with state broadcaster CCTV to show games. By the time Yao entered the league 25 years later, the NBA was a multimillion dollar business in China and that rocketed once he joined the Houston Rockets.

Hundreds of millions watched his games and they have stayed with it since he left the league. The NBA is a nine-figure business and have ambitions of making it 10. They claim 150 million followers across Chinese social media, with 42 million on Sina Weibo alone. There are claims of 450 million basketball fans and total TV audiences approaching 1 billion over the course of the NBA season.

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That is reflected in the number of active players in China, with figures of 300 million widely shared and that is growing. Some 500 schools initiated a basketball curriculum in 2016 while the Mini Basketball League youth programme has coached more than 100,000 children in 100 cities since March 2018.

This can all happen on the country’s 600,000 courts, many of which have been built in recent years. In 2015, the NBA and Ministry of Education committed 10 million yuan (US$1.6 million) to build and refurbish courts. Investment in basketball infrastructure predating the football development under Xi Jinping.

Basketball’s popularity is unparalleled as evidenced by the number of pickup games you see on the courts of major Chinese cities, where there is a thriving streetball scene, while courts have been made in the most unlikely of places: a cave in Guizhou and on Mischief Reef, one of the artificial islands China constructed in the Spratlys. There’s even a ball-sharing app where users can rent a ball from a courtside locker after scanning a QR code to unlock it.

Little wonder that the pressure was on the team to perform.

“This [World Cup] is a window for us to look out at the world,” said Yao. “The gap between China and the world leading basketball countries has grown since 2016.”

Arguably China have over-performed over the years. Now ranked 30, they finished in the top eight in Beijing in 2008, as they did four years earlier in Athens. They have always finished inside the top 12 since making their Games debut in Los Angeles in 1984. That run has likely ended now with the loss to Nigeria. Their only hope of qualifying is from the 24-team repechage qualifier later this year.

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Crisis is a permanent setting for Chinese sport. A decade ago the basketball team were losing face for losing to Iran in the Asian Championship final, the first time they had lost a gold medal game. They finished behind the Iranians at this World Cup too.

In 2003, a 10-year reform project was put in place for Chinese basketball. The “CBA 10-year Reform Project 2005-2014” aimed for the CBA to become the world’s second biggest league behind the NBA and for China’s men to finish in the top six of the Beijing Olympics. Neither target was met.

“We have the determination to keep our programme of reforms in, among others, the professional league, youth academy and sports education,” Yao said after Sunday’s loss.

Those reforms have seen the CBA expand, as has university basketball as part of an attempt to realise the CBA’s dream to “Make the ordinary extraordinary”.

Despite the positive signs there will no doubt be another inquest after this latest disappointment but there is no short cut to what they need: another Yao Ming on the court to complement the one off it.