China wants more Yaos

China wants more Yaos
It hopes to attract US players to play in local pro league and help raise standards
Picture/ REUTERS

HE'S the most recognised Chinese national basketballer.

Yao Ming (left) plays in the US for the Houston Rockets.

Now, his country wants to build a worthy supporting cast around him.

How? By enticing talented foreign players to play in China's 14-team professional basketball league, and so raise the standard of China's best homegrown players quickly.

The hope is that China can have a good shot at a medal when the Olympic Games goes to Beijing in 2008.

Chinese sporting officials were in rural Oregon last week to scout for talents.

Their first-ever association tryout would end with a three-round draft to fill two slots designated on each team for foreign players, reported the New York Times.

Mr Li Chun Jiang, coach of last year's association champion Guang Dong Tigers, said through an interpreter: 'That's the way we're going to improve our national team.

'US players are more skilled - basketball belongs to the US.'

For the US players, the tryout represented a chance for a well-paid job - Chinese teams can pay up to US$30,000 ($51,000) a month - or a ticket back to the National Basketball Association.

More than 400 players submitted their names to Mr Bruce O'Neil, the camp organiser, who is a paid consultant to the association and the Chinese Ministry of Sport.

A third of them were over 2.05m. Chinese teams still lack tall players, and coaches had made it clear to Mr O'Neil that they wanted plenty of them.

Mr O'Neil said he thought younger players would adapt better to the different culture and were more likely to stick with the league.

He talked about Alex Scales, who went directly to the Chinese league and has starred for the Shanghai team for the past two years.

Scales, 26, still has to try out each year because players are signed only to one-year contracts.

'It's been more adjustment than fun,' Scales said, pointing to the scarcity of junk food and referees.

The Chinese pros use two referees, compared with the NBA's three.

THE PERKS

But the league had been a 'place to develop', he said.

And it paid well - often higher than that offered by some European teams. The Chinese teams also guarantee a salary through the end of a season, Americans who played in China said.

The Chinese season is also six months long, shorter than most foreign league.

However, one drawback is a new rule restricting the playing time of the two foreign players on a team to a total of four quarters between them, down from five last season.

So are China's medal ambitions too lofty?

NBA coach Bob Hill, who trained some of Mr Li's Guang Dong team, doesn't think so. He praised the Chinese.

'They're smart and they can shoot. And they're not selfish.'

He even suggested that despite China's eighth-place finish in Athens, there may just be a Chinese team on the medal stand in 2008.

'Four years from now, China's going to have players who won't have to apologise to anyone,' he said.


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