SHANGHAI - Not content with owning a basketball team, studying business and making wine, China’s former NBA superstar Yao Ming has now become the youngest — and tallest — legislative advisor in Shanghai.

The 31-year-old was formally accepted as a member of an advisory body to Shanghai’s legislature at the weekend — a position that entitles him to make proposals for possible new laws — the official China Daily reported.

A photograph printed by the newspaper shows the 2.29-meter (7-foot, 6-inch) Yao towering above other newly selected members of the advisory body — his latest venture since he formally retired from the Houston Rockets in July.

“Raising proposals is very serious business and I do not want to be hasty,” Yao was quoted as saying.

Since July, Yao’s busy schedule has involved him going back to school for a university degree in business management and helping manage the Shanghai Sharks, a Chinese basketball team.

In November, he also set up a company to sell his own brand of wine using grapes from California’s famed Napa Valley, and his new role in politics has sparked concern Yao may be taking on too much.

But Zhang Chi, a spokesman for the Shanghai Sharks, dismissed these worries.       AFP