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Chinese stars to enter NBA
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王治郅、姚明加盟NBA在即
THEY'RE tall, talented and form the towers of China's “Walking Great Wall”.
After two years of hesitation and negotiations, China has decided to let one of its top basketball players - 2.16-metre tall Wang Zhizhi - join the National Basketball Association. Speculation is mounting that 2.26-metre Yao Ming won't be farbehind.
Forget about China's entry into the World Trade Organization. For sports-crazy Chinese fans, having Wang and Yao in the world's top basketball league would be proof indeed that China is joining the global elite.
With their Nike endorsements, ardent fans and towering physiques, Wang and Yao are poster-boys for how market-reform China sees itself: more open, international and growing stronger by the day.
The two young players could help China and the United States understand each other better. Call them the 21st century follow-up to “ping pong diplomacy”, the 1971 visit to China by the US table tennis team that helped thaw the Cold War.
Wang will be the first to go. For the moment, his army-run team, the Bayi Rockets, needs the 23-year-old centre for another championship run in China's six-season-old professional league.
The Rockets' best-of-five finals against Yao's Shanghai Sharks conclude by March 25 at latest. After that, the Rockets and the Chinese Basketball Association have decided that Wang can join the Dallas Mavericks for the rest of the NBA season, association spokesman Xu Minfeng said.
The Rockets previously had refused to release Wang after the Mavericks drafted him in 1999. Whether Wang remains in Dallas next season or returns to China still has to be negotiated, but “this is the first step”, said Xia Song, an agent and TV basketball commentator involved in the talks.
Wang will be the first Asian player to join the NBA. As a soldier, Wang will apply for his US visa through China's Ministry of Defence.
The towering Yao could be a harder catch. Speculation about the 20-year-old boiled after Bill Duffy, an agent for NBA players Steve Nash and Antonio Davis, met Shanghai's mayor and officials from the government-run TV station that owns the Sharks in late February.
“The meetings were very productive and we're both moving our best foot forward,” Duffy said in a telephone interview. “The details obviously are critical. We're going to work on that over the next month or so.”
The Sharks have sent mixed signals, perhaps pushing for the best possible deal. State-run newspapers quoted team managers as saying they would release Yao only at an “appropriate time, for an appropriate team and under appropriate conditions”.
But after the Sharks beat the Rockets 116-105 in the finals' opening game on March 11, Xinhua quoted Shanghai's coach as saying Wang and Yao were ripe for the NBA.
“Yao Ming is better than Shaquille O'Neal in skill,” Xinhua quoted Li Qiuping as saying. “Watch his jumps. Nobody at his age, of that height, can do them like him.”
Duffy says Yao could be the number one pick if he joins this year's NBA draft. But he also says persuading Chinese officials to release the prized player is a long process.
Duffy says he also has secured the release of Menk Batere, the 2.11-metre Beijing Ducks centre who has piqued the Toronto Raptors' interest.
Yao, Wang and Menk formed the front line of China's basketball team that placed a disappointing 10th at the 2000 Olympics.
Together, the three are known as China's “Walking Great Wall”.
Snaring Wang, and possibly Yao and Menk, too, could only boost the NBA's already large following in the world's most populous nation. Seven NBA games are broadcast in China each week, and basketball can lay claim to being the second most popular sport after soccer.
The NBA's presence in China dates back at least as far as a visit by the Washington Bullets in 1979, the year China and the United States opened diplomatic relations. (SD-Agencies)
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