http://www.sacbee.com/content/sports/basketball/kings/story/11096229p-12012627c.html
Mark Kreidler: NBA prime time a world away
Far from the league's familiar road stops, the Kings are awed by their Shanghai reception
By Mark Kreidler -- Bee Sports Columnist
Published 2:15 am PDT Friday, October 15, 2004
SHANGHAI, China - It was a sight. The buses weren't going anywhere immediately, put it that way. All around the wide-eyed basketball players riding inside, protected behind the glass windows, the people of Shanghai crowded in, waving, screaming, pounding on the sides of the vehicles, popping maybe 100 photo flashes at a time.
The effect of those flashes was of producing a daytime right there in the night, which had to have been the most apt metaphor available for this sprawling, complex, contradictory, constantly reinvented, fascinating city. Thirteen million people jammed together and hot-wired for action, and not much sleep in sight.
And so they crowded in-and in so doing they may have opened a new world entirely to the people they had come to adore.
The NBA's Immortals Across Asia tour, that is to say, made its stop in Shanghai on Thursday night. Wouldn't it be something if most of the lesson-learning occurred at the other end of the telescope?
"It just humbles you," said Chris Webber, who sat transfixed with his teammates on the bus that had transported them from their hotel to the Shanghai Stadium, watching the basketball fans close in and surround the thing as if it were an instrument of religious significance.
"It still amazes me that people so far away know who you are and know what you do," Webber said. "It's an honor to play in Shanghai. It's an honor to be here - something I'll remember for the rest of my life."
There was never any question about the mania attached to this visit, the NBA's first to this nation since the Washington Bullets of Wes Unseld vintage came over to play the Chinese National Team in the early '70s. The Houston Rockets, after all, have Shanghai native Yao Ming, and Yao's presence on this magnified marketing tour for the NBA pretty much sealed the deal in terms of a sustained, over-the-top hysteria.
But what greeted the Kings upon their own arrival at the stadium for Thursday night's exhibition game, won by the Rockets 88-86, was something the team had never imagined. It was just this side of a friendly riot, with full-throated screaming and the flash bulbs and all. If Elvis his own self had walked down off that bus, you almost wouldn't have been shocked.
"They go crazy over it. They're crazy about the game," Kings center Brad Miller said. "It was a good time out there."
It was good. Good and different. Good and strange. Good and unfamiliar. The Kings and Rockets get virtually nothing out of this trip work-wise, what with the interruptions of normal training-camp activity and the remarkably long journey to play just two exhibition games. What they take away in perspective may pick up that slack.
China is no emerging nation in terms of its interest in sports in general and basketball in particular; its hoops standing has been on the rise for years, and while Yao's success may or may not establish a gateway for other Chinese players to reach the NBA, it is clear that the country is beginning to identify strongly with the sport.
Even a casual walk around Shanghai finds a basketball hoop on just about every residential block and sport-courts poured on the playgrounds of even early-elementary schools. Yao's image, of course, dominates the city scene, but basketball is a presence here even when the NBA carnival isn't in town.
Schoolkids here play basketball the way other countries default-set themselves to soccer during recess. They want to be the next Yao, yes; but they also are the products of several years' worth of the NBA programming itself heavily in Asia - branding itself here, as if in an almost perfect anticipation of a Yao-like breakthrough occurring sooner or later.
That's not to say there aren't differences in perceptions, of course. If Thursday's game was notable to a U.S.-based observer for anything beyond Sacramento's starters roundly outplaying Houston's front five, it was perhaps for the strangely eerie silences that filled Shanghai Stadium during offensive possessions and foul shots.
It isn't that the Chinese didn't care (clearly), but rather that they weren't Americanized in terms of their participation. During several possessions, you could hear nothing but the sounds of shoe-rubber squeaking against hardwood floor as the teams went at one another.
"I shot a free throw, and I think I heard two people go, 'Ooh,' " Miller said. "We take for granted how loud our crowds are going to be at games in the U.S. This is more of a
European-type crowd."
There were huge bursts of spontaneous applause, most of them concerning Yao (he scored 14 points and had seven rebounds in 27 minutes of action, looking thoroughly distracted throughout) and Kings guard Liu Wei, Yao's best friend in China, who logged 19 minutes while Bobby Jackson sat the bench.
But, then, the crowd cheered wildly at other times, too, notably after the playing of the national anthems of both the United States and China and, at the finish, when the Kings and Rockets took part in a decidedly un-NBA-like postgame handshake line.
"I think it's a good thing for the NBA to go around the world, so people can see it live and see the NBA players in person," Yugoslavia native Peja Stojakovic said. "I know how my country would feel if we go there."
About China, Stojakovic didn't have to wonder. He could feel the pounding on the side of the bus, hear the roar of the fans outside as he pulled off his earphones and smiled and waved to them. They waved back, basketball lovers finally given a chance to express themselves to the objects of their affections. It may not have galvanized world relations, but as moments go, it'll do.
Mark Kreidler: NBA prime time a world away
Far from the league's familiar road stops, the Kings are awed by their Shanghai reception
By Mark Kreidler -- Bee Sports Columnist
Published 2:15 am PDT Friday, October 15, 2004
SHANGHAI, China - It was a sight. The buses weren't going anywhere immediately, put it that way. All around the wide-eyed basketball players riding inside, protected behind the glass windows, the people of Shanghai crowded in, waving, screaming, pounding on the sides of the vehicles, popping maybe 100 photo flashes at a time.
The effect of those flashes was of producing a daytime right there in the night, which had to have been the most apt metaphor available for this sprawling, complex, contradictory, constantly reinvented, fascinating city. Thirteen million people jammed together and hot-wired for action, and not much sleep in sight.
And so they crowded in-and in so doing they may have opened a new world entirely to the people they had come to adore.
The NBA's Immortals Across Asia tour, that is to say, made its stop in Shanghai on Thursday night. Wouldn't it be something if most of the lesson-learning occurred at the other end of the telescope?
"It just humbles you," said Chris Webber, who sat transfixed with his teammates on the bus that had transported them from their hotel to the Shanghai Stadium, watching the basketball fans close in and surround the thing as if it were an instrument of religious significance.
"It still amazes me that people so far away know who you are and know what you do," Webber said. "It's an honor to play in Shanghai. It's an honor to be here - something I'll remember for the rest of my life."
There was never any question about the mania attached to this visit, the NBA's first to this nation since the Washington Bullets of Wes Unseld vintage came over to play the Chinese National Team in the early '70s. The Houston Rockets, after all, have Shanghai native Yao Ming, and Yao's presence on this magnified marketing tour for the NBA pretty much sealed the deal in terms of a sustained, over-the-top hysteria.
But what greeted the Kings upon their own arrival at the stadium for Thursday night's exhibition game, won by the Rockets 88-86, was something the team had never imagined. It was just this side of a friendly riot, with full-throated screaming and the flash bulbs and all. If Elvis his own self had walked down off that bus, you almost wouldn't have been shocked.
"They go crazy over it. They're crazy about the game," Kings center Brad Miller said. "It was a good time out there."
It was good. Good and different. Good and strange. Good and unfamiliar. The Kings and Rockets get virtually nothing out of this trip work-wise, what with the interruptions of normal training-camp activity and the remarkably long journey to play just two exhibition games. What they take away in perspective may pick up that slack.
China is no emerging nation in terms of its interest in sports in general and basketball in particular; its hoops standing has been on the rise for years, and while Yao's success may or may not establish a gateway for other Chinese players to reach the NBA, it is clear that the country is beginning to identify strongly with the sport.
Even a casual walk around Shanghai finds a basketball hoop on just about every residential block and sport-courts poured on the playgrounds of even early-elementary schools. Yao's image, of course, dominates the city scene, but basketball is a presence here even when the NBA carnival isn't in town.
Schoolkids here play basketball the way other countries default-set themselves to soccer during recess. They want to be the next Yao, yes; but they also are the products of several years' worth of the NBA programming itself heavily in Asia - branding itself here, as if in an almost perfect anticipation of a Yao-like breakthrough occurring sooner or later.
That's not to say there aren't differences in perceptions, of course. If Thursday's game was notable to a U.S.-based observer for anything beyond Sacramento's starters roundly outplaying Houston's front five, it was perhaps for the strangely eerie silences that filled Shanghai Stadium during offensive possessions and foul shots.
It isn't that the Chinese didn't care (clearly), but rather that they weren't Americanized in terms of their participation. During several possessions, you could hear nothing but the sounds of shoe-rubber squeaking against hardwood floor as the teams went at one another.
"I shot a free throw, and I think I heard two people go, 'Ooh,' " Miller said. "We take for granted how loud our crowds are going to be at games in the U.S. This is more of a
European-type crowd."
There were huge bursts of spontaneous applause, most of them concerning Yao (he scored 14 points and had seven rebounds in 27 minutes of action, looking thoroughly distracted throughout) and Kings guard Liu Wei, Yao's best friend in China, who logged 19 minutes while Bobby Jackson sat the bench.
But, then, the crowd cheered wildly at other times, too, notably after the playing of the national anthems of both the United States and China and, at the finish, when the Kings and Rockets took part in a decidedly un-NBA-like postgame handshake line.
"I think it's a good thing for the NBA to go around the world, so people can see it live and see the NBA players in person," Yugoslavia native Peja Stojakovic said. "I know how my country would feel if we go there."
About China, Stojakovic didn't have to wonder. He could feel the pounding on the side of the bus, hear the roar of the fans outside as he pulled off his earphones and smiled and waved to them. They waved back, basketball lovers finally given a chance to express themselves to the objects of their affections. It may not have galvanized world relations, but as moments go, it'll do.
