Chinese love lan cho Basketball has been played in China since 1908, but promotion by the NBA has caused the sport to grow greatly in recent years. June 25, 2002 BEIJING -- He Zhi is a speedy playmaker with a can't-miss jump shot. But relax, NBA scouts, he is not the next great Chinese basketball star. He's a lithe, 5-foot-6-inch, 48-year-old government plumber who learned to play ball as a teenager during the Cultural Revolution at Military Factory No. 3,608. These days, He Zhi plays in a daily lunchtime game with some young fellows from the post office. They play on an outdoor court through the dusty Mongolian winds of spring and summer's smoggy heat, with He dishing off or driving through traffic, a crafty, unstylish blur in tight red shorts and black socks. Yes, they play hoops in China. It's no secret. You can't hide 7-5 Yao Ming of the Shanghai Sharks, who could be chosen first in the NBA draft Wednesday. And when the Los Angeles Lakers swept the New Jersey Nets in the NBA Finals, the Chinese were watching live on state-run television. Yao, who would become the third Chinese national in the NBA after Wang Zhizhi of the Dallas Mavericks and Mengke Bateer of the Denver Nuggets, represents only one facet of Chinese basketball. He is the product of the elite world of state-run sports academies famous for churning out Olympic and professional star athletes. China's regular folks also love the game they call "lan cho," many learning to play in junior high school. The Chinese shoot baskets in the cities, in poor villages, in schoolyards and at factories, and they root for both China's professional teams and the NBA. While Ping-Pong is China's national pastime, and soccer garnered bigger headlines during the World Cup, basketball probably ranks next in popularity as a game to play and watch. China's pro league drew 750,000 fans this year, 100,000 more than last year, and thousands watch NBA games broadcast sporadically on Chinese television. A few years ago, a public opinion survey identified the two most famous Americans in China: Thomas Alva Edison, followed by Michael Jordan. At the basketball courts in an apartment complex on Beijing's eastern outskirts, all the 14-year-olds have favorite NBA stars. Li Yang, the shortest kid, likes Allen Iverson of the 76ers, who's the shortest player on his team but also the best. The kids playing at this court--adorned with misspelled graffiti that reads "NBA Michael Jodan No. 1"--seem as happy as the rest of China's basketball fans that Yao is expected to be one of the first players drafted by the NBA. "He's got a chance to play with the best players, and it will show that Chinese players have more important status," said one of the 14-year-olds, Shen Cheng Jun, whose favorite NBA star is the Grizzlies' Jason Williams. It was big news last month when the NBA held its draft lottery and determined that the Houston Rockets have the first pick, followed by the Bulls. Yao's future will be determined by his Chinese team, the Sharks, but the club has indicated it will allow him to leave for the NBA if a deal can be struck that helps both Yao and the Sharks. Part of China's thinking is that if its players join the NBA, it will help develop the game here. Beijing will be host to the 2008 Summer Olympics, which would be the perfect time to show off an excellent Chinese team. "Of course, after Yao Ming joins the NBA I'm sure he'll learn many useful things," said Li Yao-min, general manager of the Sharks. "It will push Chinese basketball and even the whole world's game if he plays in the NBA." Basketball came to China in 1908 through the Shanghai branch of the YMCA. In 1923, a collegian with an interest in sports named Dong Shou Yi went to Springfield, Mass., to study the game with its inventor, the YMCA's James Naismith. Dong later championed the game as a member of the International Olympic Committee during China's pre-communist Nationalist government era. Basketball survived under communism, with the Chinese military team competing in the 1950s and 1960s against the Soviet Union and the eastern European satellite states. The game has taken off in recent years, helped by the NBA's aggressive promotion throughout Asia and by the creation of the China Basketball Association pro league in 1995. One of the most popular brand names in China in the past 10 years has been Chicago Bulls, whose pirated logo is found on baseball caps and T-shirts throughout the country. As much as the Chinese love the NBA, basketball isn't seen as an American game. It's an international sport, and so it doesn't often fall prey to the political tension that can freeze U.S.-China relations. In 1999, after the U.S. accidentally bombed China's embassy in Belgrade, NBA telecasts in China were canceled. But last year, during the height of the crisis over the Chinese detention of a U.S. military surveillance plane crew, the downtown Beijing basketball complex, just east of Tiananmen Square, was as busy as ever, filled with young men wearing NBA T-shirts. "It's both an American sport and a world sport, like Ping-Pong is to China," said Yang Ming, 21, one of the guys from the post office in the lunchtime game, who plays in green work pants and knockoff Converse high top sneakers called Double Star. If there is one problem with basketball in China today it's that there are not enough public courts. There are several public complexes in central Beijing that charge about 60 cents an hour per player, but there is a definite shortage. The old neighborhoods are too crowded for courts, and land in the newer neighborhoods is too pricey to justify building new ones. He Zhi the plumber and his postal worker friends solved the problem by getting access to a court in a diplomatic housing compound. They play for an hour each day, running, sweating and fouling like players anywhere. They trash-talk, too, albeit in polite Chinese-style. To his face, He Zhi is "old teacher," the title of respect given to any elder. But behind his back, he is "old man." "I love the game--I love how you're moving all the time," the old man said. "I like both Chinese basketball and the NBA, but of course I prefer the NBA and players like Kobe Bryant. They've got better skills. When they play they are like conjuring magic." ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ If this is how the chinnese public feels, then Yao will definetly play in Houston.
