The search for the 7-1 soldier from China turned up no sightings Thursday, and calls to his cell phone went unanswered. The closest you could get to the missing Maverick, even though he's reportedly somewhere in town not far from the NBA Finals, was this short message before the beep. "His name is Wang."

Marc Stein of the Dallas Morning News reports that Wang Zhi-Zhi has let two deadlines pass without responding to a mandatory national-team recall back home.

Not only is Wang?s future with the Mavericks and the NBA in doubt, but his disappearance would also serve as an embarrassment to the Chinese government who value reputation as much as currency.

That, of course, is the last thing the Houston Rockets will want to hear, knowing that negotiations with Yao Ming were going to be tough enough, given that Yao's rights are held by at least five entities in China. Any fears in China, from any of those entities, about losing control over their prized asset if he's allowed to come to America won't be eased by Wang's refusal to return on demand.

"This is all new territory to us," said Rockets general manager Carroll Dawson. "To me, I feel pretty sure that [Yao] wants to play in the NBA, and it seems like the Chinese government wants him to play in the NBA, too. We will make it clear to them that we would just like to have him from October until the playoffs."

The Rockets still plan to send a contingent to China to meet with officials. Dawson won?t know where they stand until the talks start, but they still have three weeks to make a decision on who to choose with the first pick in the draft.

For the Mavericks, and the league as a whole, there aren't nearly so many Wang options. If Wang returns to China, after the negative attention went worldwide, it's highly possible he won't be allowed to return to the NBA. If Wang stays in the States, any team that signed him in free agency would be threatening the years of NBA goodwill that were required to convince the Chinese to finally let Wang come to Dallas almost two years after he was drafted.

Commissioner David Stern, also in town for the Finals, refused an interview request Thursday to discuss Wang's situation, relaying through a league spokesman that "this is a personal matter, and we have absolutely nothing to do with it."