The NBA's Western Conference was already bunched tightly enough.  Several huge trades over the past couple of weeks involving the likes of Pau Gasol, Shaquille O'Neal, & Jason Kidd amongst others only furthered that bunch.  Well, the conference race to the playoffs may have just thinned out a bit.

KRIV-TV out of Houston, and ESPN, are reporting that C Yao Ming is done for the season.  http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3265631

He was pulled from practice after complaing of--yet again--foot pain.  He was examined by team doctors which revealed that he was going to be done for at least a game or two.  He was then sent to Memorial Hermann Hospital for further testing.  It was revealed today that he has an apparent stress fracture, and will undergo season-ending surgery.  

As you can imagine, this is going to be potentially devastating for the Rockets.  The Western Conference #1 seed and the last #8 seed are currently separated by only 5.5 games.  Although the Rockets have been playing out of their minds recently, winning 12 straight, one good 3 or 4 game losing streak could send them plummeting right out of the playoffs altogether (they currently are the #7 seed).

It should be interesting to see how they handle the situation beginning tonight against Washington.