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Jeremy was among a group of NBA players (like Jared Dudley, Klay Thompson), soccer stars (Robbie Rogers, Robbie Keane), and NBA writers (Marc Stein) invited to play soccer to raise money for Nash’s foundation.

But according to Orange County Register reporter Kevin Ding, the Rockets didn’t approve of Lin playing in the soccer match because of the risk involved, so he played for only a few minutes (for both teams).

However, Lin showed that he had some soccer skills by getting an assist to Klay Thompson for an opening goal. Nash’s team ended up beating Rogers’ team 5-4 with Nash scoring the winning goal.

Click here for more pics from the event.

Yao was there to welcome him into the “Legacy of Bigs” in Houston. Below are some pics, along with links to more photos and slideshows.

Copyright 2013 NBAE (Photo by Bill Baptist/NBAE via Getty Images)

Copyright 2013 NBAE (Photo by Bill Baptist/NBAE via Getty Images)

If you want to see more slideshows from Saturday’s events, click here, here and here (courtesy Rockets.com, Sports790.com and the Houston Chronicle).

Since Yao is a goodwill ambassador for Houston, it made sense for Air China to invite him to fly on their first flight to Houston from Beijing. So this trip has obviously been planned for quite some time. But it’s great timing since Yao will be able to attend Dwight Howard’s first press conference on Saturday welcoming him as a Houston Rocket. That should be a pretty cool press conference since we understand Hakeem Olajuwon will also be there. Nice touch by these Rocket legends to be there to welcome Dwight to Houston.

Below are some photos that Raymond posted in the forum of Yao at the ceremony at the Beijing airport before he departed on his flight to Houston.

Click here for more photos from the Air China ceremony.

Below are some photos from the night. Here’s a video that recaps some of the game, and Slam Online’s coverage of the game.

Popular Brazilian soccer superstar Kaka of Real Madrid made an appearance and spoke to the crowd beforehand, and also talked with Yao. Since Kaka is a soccer ambassador for Brazil, he had flown to Beijing to promote an upcoming exhibition match between the Brazilian and Chinese national teams in September at the “Bird’s Nest.”

Tracy McGrady happened to be touring in China and had just flown in from Changsha, so he was too tired to play, but he did act as the “assistant coach” of Yao’s team.

Click here for more photos and details of the game, thanks to Raymond in the forum.

On Sunday night, the night before the game, Yao held a charity gala event sponsored by the Thaihot Group, a conglomerate in residential and commercial real estate development, chemicals, mining, finance and securities, and bio-medicine. The charity gala was held outdoor in Thaihot’s mega-project Courtyards by the Canal.

Click here for more photos of Yao and other NBA players at the charity gala.

Earlier in the day on Sunday, Yao and Joakim Noah visited a primary school for children of migrant workers in the Changping District in Beijing.

Yao and Joakim split themselves up into teams with the school children to see which team could make the most layups. Yao’s team lost, so Yao had to pay up on a bet and do push-ups.

Click here to see more photos of Yao and Joakim’s visit to the school, and here for a video of some of their visit.

Yao’s wife Ye Li and daughter Amy also visited the primary school with Yao and Joakim. Click here for lots more photos of Yao’s wife and daughter.

Before the weekend’s events, the Yao Foundation had a drawing for all ticket buyers where the winner would get their tickets delivered personally by Yao Ming himself. That’s exactly what happened on Thursday, June 27th. Check out the photos of below of Yao delivering the tickets and visiting with the winner.

Click here for more photos of Yao visiting the winner of the tickets in his home.

So far five NBA players have committed to playing in the game against the Chinese National Team as the Chinese prepare for the 2013 FIBA Asia Championship to be played in Manila in early August. The NBA players who have committed to play on the “Yao Foundation” team are Joakim Noah, Metta World Peace, Kyle Lowry, George Hill, and Luis Scola.

You might remember that the Yao Foundation hosted two charity games 3 summers ago, one game played in Beijing and the other game in Taipei, which turned out to be very entertaining and successful in raising money to fund Yao Foundation charity initiatives.

The proceeds of this charity game will fund this year’s “Yao Foundation Hope Primary School Basketball Season” project, as well as funding the travel and expenses of school children of the Hope Primary Schools in poverty-stricken areas (and the Ya’an earthquake stricken area) to participate in the Yao Foundation Hope Primary School basketball season.

This was the first time that Amy had been seen in public with his parents since Yao’s retirement from the NBA two years ago. She is growing up fast!

After the show, Yao went backstage to meet some of the skaters, like Canada’s Kurt Browning, who was the World Champion from 1989-1991 and 1993.

And checkout this photo of Yao with flamboyant American skater Johnny Weir.

Click here for more photos of Yao with his family, Yao with some of the skaters, and scenes from the show.

When asked who he thought would win the NBA Finals, Yao diplomatically skirted answering the question, but he did say he was a Spurs fan. This is probably due to him playing the Spurs so many times over his 8-year career — he can’t help but respect how they play the game.

It just goes to show that even though Yao retired a few years ago, he still remains a global force as an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and de facto ambassador for China.

As the Fortune web site describes, the Fortune Global Forum is the highest-level place for multinational CEOs—and the heads of China’s most important companies— to gain visibility into the emerging new trends, and meet the people that are shaping “China’s New Future.” It represents an unparalleled opportunity to build the key relationships and obtain insights that are vital to positioning multinational companies for long-term success, in China and on a global basis.

Here’s a list of all the speakers at the Global Forum. Pretty impressive names there.

Well, the good folks at the Asia Society posted a video of almost the entire interview, which is very informational, as well as humorous! Click here to check it out, and consider joining the Asia Society — their mission is a very worthy one.

Yao first started the day by making an appearance at the Asia Society Texas Center in Houston where he participated in a luncheon limited to about 40 guests (to keep it very intimate) who purchased premium tickets to benefit the Asia Society to have a great lunch, and hear Yao be interviewed by Jay Williams. Williams was the player chosen #2 in the 2002 NBA Draft right after Yao was selected #1 by the Rockets. Williams is now an analyst for ESPN.

Below are some photos from the event. Also served was Yao Ming’s Cabernet Sauvignon from his Yao Family Wines winery.

If you want to get a good idea of some of what Yao discussed with Jay, you can check out this video of Yao that was filmed a few days before the luncheon.

There were many funny moments as Yao shared his dry wit with the audience. But one of the most touching moments of the discussion happened at the end when Williams corrected an earlier statement of Yao’s when Yao said that every NBA player is unique. Williams begged to differ, telling the audience that Yao is not only unique because of his talent, but because of his character as well.

Immediately after the luncheon, Yao went to the 5th Ward in Houston where the NBA was holding one of two events where NBA players in town for the All-Star game could help out in the community.

One of the funniest moments occurred when Dikembe Mutombo walked up and told some of the organizers and pointed to a project nearby that Yao should be working on because it was more difficult than the “easy” one he was working on.

Yao then moved over to help some other volunteers move a Jungle Jim that had just been assembled to a spot where it would be permanently placed. On his way over, he physically bumped into Tim Duncan (not pictured) from behind, which kind of surprised him, but was funny.

A few minutes later, Yao ran into Kobe Bryant and they exchanged a few pleasantries. Bryant seemed really happy to see Yao. That says a ton about how loved Yao is among his former competitors. It’s also refreshing to see a serious superstar like Bryant get a big smile on his face like this one that you rarely see from him.

It was at this event where I witnessed that people in Houston still go crazy when they see Yao. It’s really interesting to see how they react when they see him. The looks of awe on their faces when they see how big he is in person — or the smiles he brings to their faces — is amazing.

But unlike just a few years ago, it seems like just about everyone has a camera in their cellphone now. As a result, Yao is crowded by even more people because they all want a photo of him, and he was getting requests from tons of people (non NBA players) to have their photo taken with him.

To make things worse, many times the requestors would hand their camera phone to someone else to take their photo, but then that person has trouble understanding what button they needed to push on the phone to take the picture, thus making things very awkward and frustrating for people like me who want Yao to be able to move about freely in his life without being a walking tourist attraction.

Poor Yao. He handles it so well, but I just wish more people would respect his space, just wave hello to him, and not get so enamored taking a photo with him using their camera phones. I also wish some of the media wouldn’t keep asking him the same dumb questions that he’s probably answered a million times, like the question he was asked, “How does it feel to give back to the community?’

Yao obliged as much as he could with all of these requests, but it really was too much since it slowed him from moving more than a few feet without getting hit up for another request.

Finally, Yao’s final stop for the day was at Houston’s City Hall where he was officially proclaimed a Goodwill Ambassador for the City of Houston by the mayor. I was able to get some cool photos of Yao walking in downtown Houston and in front of City Hall in the city that has embraced him since 2002.

Yao then went inside City Hall where a throng of reporters, photographers and videographers were waiting for him to cover the ceremonial event. Check out the dozen or so cameraman in the back of the room that were there to cover it. You would think that this photo was taken in Shanghai or Beijing with all the media that was there!

Below Yao and the mayor talk as Rockets’ TV commentator Bill Worrell is about to start his opening remarks.

This presentation was a much bigger deal than you would first think since the mayor, Annise Parker, said she purposely has never given a key to the city to anyone since she has been mayor over the past 3 years! She takes it very seriously, but she knew Yao was a worthy recipient since she knows he will represent the city well.

Check out some video here of the mayor’s remarks.

A sweet impromptu moment occurred when a little girl of Asian descent (not pictured) in a Houston Rockets jersey brought a bouquet of flowers up to Yao while he was on stage. Yao holds the bouquet in the photo below.

Yao and his parents later signed a large poster of Yao.

Afterwards, the media surrounds Yao as you would expect.