Word: yao
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Chinese Basketball Association games has been rising steadily and is on pace to break 600,000 this season. Valuable sponsors are eager to plaster their logos on team jerseys and arena signboards. Homegrown superstars are emerging, such as rangy prodigies Hu Weidong, a crowd-pleasing Jiangsu Dragons forward, and Yao Ming, a 2.23-m windmill who regulates the paint for the Shanghai Sharks. Showtime in the CBA has all the trappings of big-time hoops. It's becoming a credible entertainment replete with thunderjams, jiggly cheerleaders and thousands of screaming spectators...
...dreams fall the hardest. Last Friday, YAO MING, China's 2.25-m basketball prodigy, was kept from entering the NBA draft. U.S. scouts had tipped the 21-year-old as a No. 1 pick. It wasn't Yao's first disappointment. Last year, he was barred by Chinese sports officials from attending the Nike hoop summit?where the best young stars show off their skills?because of outsized obligations to the Olympic squad. This time around, though, the decision turned less on national politics than simple economics. In exchange for releasing their imposing center, the Shanghai Sharks wanted an estimated...
...generation, including Wang's basketball-playing parents, set the ball in motion. Today, 200 million Chinese play hoops and delight in the exploits of Big Shark (Shaquille O'Neal), the Letter Deliverer (Karl Malone) and One Cent (Penny Hardaway). China even began touting its trio of homegrown goliaths?Wang, Yao Ming and Menk Batere?as the Walking Great Wall...
...Nobody will be watching Wang's moves more closely than Yao, China's other towering talent. A few months ago, bookies were betting that Yao would be the first Chinese player off the NBA bench. The 20-year-old enjoyed a breakthrough season this year and he holds outsized potential. "It's almost impossible to find a man of his size who runs the court so well," says Terry Rhoads, marketing director for Nike in China. "I could see him ending up as the No. 1 draft pick this June." But Yao's bid is caught up in capitalist wrangling...
...Even if Wang and Yao make it in the NBA, the nation has only one other prospective dazzler in the wings?Inner Mongolian Menk Batere. It may take another decade for China's basketball machine to produce a full crop of giant exports. The NBA, which touts itself as the "world's greatest league," is restrained about China's potential. In terms of NBA revenue, the nation lags far behind Japan and Taiwan. When Wang's debut was broadcast on state television last Friday, crowds gathered in Beijing to cheer on their native son. Several die-hard fans sported brand...