Chinese basketball, he suggests, is much like the country as a whole: caught halfway between an enduring socialist system and an amped-up commercial frenzy, anxious to absorb ideas from the West but deeply ambivalent about their influence. It lost to Russia in the bronze medal match. In 1936, the Chinese fielded an Olympic team in 1936. One of the first things one sees when entering the main courtyard of the Forbidden City is basketball courts: one with a grass surface and another, with normal playground concrete. One Chinese interpreter for an American coach told the Washington Post: "I don't translate it. As the season rolls on, Yardley uses the team’s road trips to explore bigger pieces of the puzzle. Government scouts roam the country, looking for tall kids that have tall parents. But Wang is still old-school, unleashing tirades at his players, firing 15 or 16 coaches in six years (who’s counting, even edging onto the bench during games with a young mistress by his side. FIBA organises the most famous and prestigious international basketball competitions including the FIBA Basketball World Cup, the FIBA World Championship for Women and the FIBA 3x3 World Tour.
I wished that courage would carry us to the next round, to make a record in the history of Chinese basketball, but I failed.” Some commentators even declared that -- instead of being a show of goodwill, the now fabled Georgetown-Bayi "Basketball Brawl Symbolized Growing U.S.-China Tensions" as Max Boot wrote in Commentary (August 21, 2011).
When Yao Ming first turned professional at 13, his coach put the Sharks through four practices a day: The first at 6:30am, the last ending at 8:30pm. China’s athletic army, much like its mass of factory workers, has been extremely productive, going from five Olympic gold medals in 1988 to 51 in 2008. Yet even before the season begins, the boss does an about-face, initially sidelining Weiss in favor of a Chinese assistant whose idea of a perfect practice is to run pointless drills until the players collapse. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Chinese teams are now much more popular and richer than when the CBA started out in 1994, but fans still want to watch American players. One 6-foot-1, 14-year-old boy told the Los Angeles Times, “I was picked out of a line up in the second grade. The Americans led right from the start and 33-11 at the end of the first quarter and 61-27 at the halftime. It was embarrassed by the U.S. team but managed to advance to the final round with a buzzer-beating shot against Slovenia. The new coach is an amiable NBA veteran, Bob Weiss. Among the 12 teams in the CBA League are the Beijing Ducks, Guangzhou Southern Tigers, Hong Kong Flying Dragons, Hubei Cranes and the Shanghai Sharks. The Chinese national team made it to the quarterfinals in the 2004 Olympics in Athens under former NBA coach Del Harris and placed eighth overall.
With the exception of foreigners and big stars, CBA players generally live in dormitories at the sports centers where they practice. “Even during our day off, we have to jump rope at home and get our parents’ signature to prove it.”
A man with a volcanic temper and a soft spot for Michael Jordan, the 65-year-old team owner is part of the first modern Chinese generation to make a fortune and spend it on a dream “ this one inspired by the West. It remained popular through the Mao era, when it was played under the slogan “friendship first, competition second” and players apologized after making fouls. Many have played at American universities with good teams and have some experience playing in Europe, Argentina, Turkey or Israel or some other place.