Well, the honest answer - Asians aren't as good in basketball. Forget about China, a country with huge population and a basketball craze, yet stinks at basketball (they just lost 5 straight games in the Olympics). Just look at Asian Americans (or Asian Australians/Canadians if you prefer), how many Jeremy Lins do we have? ONE! That's why Linsanity was crazy, partly, if not mostly, because of the race factor. In basketball, long limbs and explosive jumping ability help... a lot! That's not the body feature Asian people are known for. Yet when you look at Ping Pong and badminton, quick muscles are the most important. That's why Asians dominate that game. Yes, we can pick an outlier here and there, but when you look at the overall percentage or just your mental impression/stereotype, you can figure it out very quickly.
They stink because they don't play well together. There is no 'Asians can't play basketball'. They aint good. Yes.... but they could get close to the European teams, those without many NBA players..... That is Top 8 in the world. If an Asian can specialize on 3 pt shooting and be deadly shooters they can be scary good as well
I think the main problem is the lack of player development infrastructure in China and Asia in general. Here in the US, we've had pro-basketball dating back to the 1940s and college ball even before that. That's a lot of time to create an efficient system for churning out players. Once infrastructure catches up (or a country borrows the infrastructure of another) there is a lot of improvement. For example, the Chinese swimmers killed it this year and they were mostly trained in Australia. Last Winter Olympics, Kim Yuna (Korea), the world's top figure skater trained exclusively in Canada. Japan has had pro-baseball for a long time now and as a result has built a pretty good development system. Hell, they've won the WBC both times.
So any problem ? The formal name of Taiwan is ROC (aka Republic of China), it's separated from mainland China because of civil war in China. The winning party of the civil war has been holding mainland China, while the losing party of the civil war has been holding the island. Heck even the official map of Taiwan (aka Republic of China) claims mainland China as part of its territory. Tell me what's the meaning of civil war? ---> a war between the parties within the same country.
Don't know where you get your sources, Bball is not that big in China. It's growing, but it takes backseat to a lot of other sports. BBall is not even top ten there. Yao made it popular recently, Jlin will help Yao take it to another level.
Basketball is very popular in the Philippines too, yet too have yet to produce any NBA guards as well. When it comes down to it, it seems to be the developmental system as well. Which is why the Philippines national team recruits players from the U.S. Here was a interesting article that contains information regarding the Chinese basketball development system and quotes from the current coach, Bob Donewald JR. I've quoted the comments that I thought were most valuable. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/s...-china-to-rethink-basketball-system.html?_r=1
Here are some more interviews that give insight regarding Chinese basketball: Jason Dixon interview: http://www.niubball.com/tag/smush-parker/ NiuBBall: You’ve been with this team for a long time, has knowing all of the players you’re working with made the transition easier? JD: They like me, which is cool because I have the respect already. As a foreigner coming in here as a coach, they listen to you. But, they think you’re going to leave and go back to America, that you’re just here to get the money. And you know, some of them learn. The thing is that they know the stuff that I tell them to do is the stuff I do myself. They’ve seen me work hard, they’ve seen that I’m always in shape, so they can’t say anything back to me, like “You’ve never done this.” Everything I’m telling you, I’ve done, so don’t say a word to me. So the only thing they say now is, “You didn’t shoot that well” [laughing]. NiuBBall: As a foreign coach, what are some of the challenges in working with Chinese players? JD: The language barrier is always tough. And their work ethic is a lot different than Americans. I don’t want to call them lazy, but when they work out its very laid back. At home, we say do a drill and kids go hard as hell. Here, it’s just like “Eh, we’ll do the drill.” NiuBBall: Why do you think that is? JD: Honestly, it’s because they play ball all year. They’re exhausted. So it becomes monotonous to them. I honestly think they lose the love for the game. In America, you can go get a pick-up game and at this pick-up game, nobody knows who you are. You can do whatever – if you want to dribble the ball, no one is going to say you can’t do it. Whereas here, you go to practice, you have a position. If you’re a big man, you’re not supposed to dribble and that get’s old, it get’s boring. I have ideas to kind of see if the players respond to it. My original idea I had was to just let the kids play five-on-five, have some kids come to gym and just say, you guys got 60 minutes to play five-on-five and whoever loses has to run “seventeens.” The coach was like, “We’re going to be fired if you do that” [laughing]. The kids don’t love the game. One of the things about Americans is they have love [for basketball.] Even Europeans love the game. Curtis Donaldl Interview http://www.niubball.com/tag/curtis-donald/
Some of the top prospects in terms of guards from China was Chen Jianghua and currently Guo Ailun. Both of them have showed flashes, especially Chen Jianghua, but a combination of injuries and not being able to play a traditional style of PG for his CBA team has his hurt his development. <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/GniYlbxGESM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> The "18 year old" Guo Ailun has held his own in FIBA youth competitions and was one of the few players on the current National Team that showed he wasn't scared of pressure in the Olympics. He too has his own problems as well, including supposedly having a bad attitude with chances. But in terms of being elite talent against the world at the senior level, that has yet to be seen. The Chinese will probably continue to be a dominate force in FIBA ASIA, but against world competition, without Yao they're going to have huge problems as seen in the 2012 Olympic games. They might just well be changing the development at the youth level, including bringing in foreign coaches. One example that might be very telling in the future is Chris Tang, originally played for Hampton Roads Academy in Virginia. He is from China that got recruited early and lived with foster parents to play high school ball in the U.S. The Chinese national team were supposedly trying to recruit him back to play for the junior teams, but his dad doesn't want him to do that and rather he develop in the US and get into a university. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/5uVKmYLoymw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> He recently just transferred to one of the top, if not the best, basketball high school in the USA and will be a junior at Oak Hill Academy. He's already getting attention from D1 schools as well. I don't know how good he's going to be, but he's already got a head start on Jeremy Lin in relation to high school basketball.
Remember Asians can be very proud people, just like any ethnic other group who wants to "represent" for their ethnicity/culture or country and sees a celebrity that they look up to whether it's Jeremy Lin, Manny Pacquiao (tons of Fil-Ams get their Filipino pride from him), or Cain Velasquez (advertised as the first UFC Mexican champion). But like you just described, there's a ugly side to Jeremy Lin's heritage and I think part of that is the political conflict between Chinese vs Taiwanese. Being proud of him is one thing, but as you can see even on this forum and his Facebook comments, there's still the divide on whether or not he's Taiwanese or Chinese even when Jeremy Lin from the beginning acknowledges both.
I think it's a combination of talent, physical attributes, development/support, and culture. Even Jeremy Lin said that he's very fortunate because his family actually supported his love for basketball and a lot of his friends didn't get that same opportunity. The Chinese basketball development system is different than in the U.S. as posted above.
I undersand there is little to no infrastructure in China to develop players (and even in HK or Taiwan who are quite developed). Lets be realistic here as well football is a huge sport in China too but you don't see their kids in the junior developments like Aussie kids sometimes get sent. I think there is a systematic issue here as well from the pro clubs. Basketball colleges could find awesome point guards in China. There has to be a Chris Paul/Steve Nash level type juniors over there (its just a matter of numbers right?) I rarely hear chinese people come over to the States to play ball but I routinely hear that Australian's go over to the states for college on scholarship (heck i know a mate his Kiwi and his going to Memphis Div 3 college on scholarship for ball). I'm just quite surprised by all this
See this is what I'm talking about! China needs more of this. Identifying young talent early and sending it to the States! thats when they can really call their own home grown talent. Even Yao had heaps of developmental problems coming out of China
haha I like your passion, but who knows what's going to happen. However, now with Yao completely done with basketball, he might be able to convince Chinese officials that some of their techniques and process needs to change. Stephon Marbury has openly said he wants to get involved in coaching the Chinese youth teams, that might be a huge difference if he's able to do that effectively. Going back to Yao, even at 7'6, he's also unique compared to other Chinese National players because of his mindset and work ethnic he was able to still compete. Compare Yi to Yao, Yi has all the tools to become a very effective NBA player, but he continues to struggle. Raefer Alston once said that Yi is a introvert and thinks too much after a bad game, while Yao would go in and put in work after a bad game. Unfortunately, Yao's body couldn't keep up with the demanding schedule. Also going back to your comment above in regards to Chinese players being sent to play ball in the U.S. at the college level. There's actually been several players from Asia, especially China, that have been sent to play ball at the college level. China may not be sending their best youth players to develop in the US though, and so far Chris Tang is the only exception partly due to his parents wanting it to happen. You also have to remember, there's a combination of factors that make a player great. Players that come from Asia to play in college have to deal with cultural barriers, while still maintaining eligibility to play. Not to mention the level of talent and physicality in the U.S. takes time to get used too and not every player can live up to those expectations, especially if they have trouble understanding the same language as the majority of their teammates. Other players that recently played D1 ball from Asia include Japeth Aguilar (Philippines), Jin Soo Kim (Maryland), Max Zhang (Berkeley). Division II includes: Then there's Taiwanese born and raised National, Jet Chang: <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Z_woi6G2F3Q" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Ray Chen's high school clips, going to play D2 ball at Belmont Abbey College <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6XJH37_IuRg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Long-Mao Hu - Chaminade University http://www.goswords.com/news/2011/11/14/MBB_1114114429.aspx?path=mbball I think if they're going to send players from Asia to play ball in the U.S., it should be at least high school so they can get comfortable with the lifestyle, including the language, training, and competition. But then again, there's only so many Asians and their families who actually think basketball is a serious route to go. I think there's more opportunities in CA since there's more of a large population there and Asian-American leagues, but not sure about the entire USA.
Damn I hate that there's no edit button! Correction: Other players played D1 ball in the USA from Asia include Japeth Aguilar (Philippines played for Western Kentucky), Jin Soo Kim (South Korean from Maryland), Max Zhang (UC Berkeley from China), Ted Wang (Texas A&M Corpus-Christi from China). Max was the only one who got close to meaningful minutes, but left early. <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/y8SdQZVE-YY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Here's another video that talks briefly about China's government developmental system and Yao's former Chinese coaches. <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Z21gtLfz_x8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
That's how the Taiwanese work in general. We are extremely proud of our athletes that are in any way Taiwan related. As a Taiwanese who has lived in Hong Kong for 17 years, it's obvious in Hong Kong that it isn't the same thing. Cantos aren't exactly very proud of their sports, with an exception being Rugby because of the Sevens. As for your friends talking about Lin, you should know very well how Asians treat their celebrities, they know everything the celebrity likes, what blood type he is, every interview he has done etc. The only reason China has jumped into this was only because Lin's parents mainly identifies their family as Taiwanese, obviously if they left the Taiwanese alone to cheer for Lin they're recognizing the difference between the two countries. As for your bottom of the issue, I agree with you. If he plays for anybody it should be for USA unless he chooses to play for Taiwan.
Be patient. There will be plenty of news soon enough. He will be holding a basketball clinic there as well, and then go to Hong Kong for a few days, and back to Taiwan.
