Interesting article from China Daily.......... In China, Houston Rockets is considered their home team !!
"Zhang says most people realize the Rockets won't make it very far in the playoffs this year, but he says fans have already adopted surrogate teams to follow in the postseason." BLASPHEMY!
I just dont get it why lakers and kb are so popular in China. I dislike him since he came into this league and never like lakers since I begun to watch NBA. I am a bulls and jordan fan like most guys, became a AI fan when jordan retired, and now I am a huge fan of rockets since they acquired Yao and T-mac. p.s. Is the lakers the second fav team besides the home team for guys here in US?
This article contradicts itself to me. If all these people stayed Rockets fans even with Yao out they wouldn't be looking for a surrogate playoff team to root for. To me this means that without Yao Chinese people would rather root for a different team hence the Rockets aren't China's favorite team sans Yao unlike what the article says.
No they are the Yankees of the NBA. In other words you either like them (and a lot of people do) or you hate them. They can't be No. 2. They are No. 1 or one of your least favorites.
certainly,we r ROCKETS funs.Since YAO played basketball,we begin to concern ROCKS,concern NBA...IN CHINA,there r so many ROCKS funs for YAO u know,we have concerned ROCKS as our home team for many years..all thiny about ROCKS we know about,so i want to say u r unintelligent..my friend. A MESSAGE FROM SHANGHAI
Who are you talking to. I understand you are doing your best to write in english (I couldn't even begin to write in Chinese) but your post makes little sense.
maybe thatz b/c they think rockets wont go far in the playoff this season without yao. so fans want to find another team to support if rockets is eliminated in first or second round. b/c it is more fun to watch the games when you are a fan of some team, rather than being indifferent. but thatz just bs for me, I wont find a so-called surrogate. if not rockets, I dont care who wins the title, but itz better not LAL.
exactly. A lot of people (a large majority of sports fans) would say you have one team you root for and no others. If you have multiple you are really a fan of the sport and league than a fan a team. (not saying you can't be a fan of a team and the league itself. Some people are just fans of a league)
Yeah its because they have won so much. The Celtics are close to this status too, but my experience is not a whole lot of people hate the Celtics like they do the Lakers.
in that case, if you are a fan of a league or sport, then you are not a fan strictly speaking. The word fan is used so often and broadly these days, so it's lost its original meaning, IMO
Fan originally came from the word fanatic meaning obsessed. People can be fanatical about a league just as much as a team or player. So the original meaning for fan is actually better used when it is used broadly. Its just people who will find a surrogate team at any point of a season are not fanatic about the original team they like hence why I call these Chinese fans who have found surrogates not fans of the Rockets.
