The Bayi Rockets are the crown franchise of the Chinese Basketball Association, not because they’re good — they won 31 percent of their games last year — or particularly likable — as Jim Yardley wrote in Grantland after Bayi brawled with Georgetown last year, “Anti-Bayi sentiment [at one time] was so deep that rumors began to... Read more »
China’s love of basketball most wondrously expresses itself in the way fans welcome aging former stars from the NBA. You, basketball aficionado, might call Tracy McGrady an oft-injured and washed-up bench player, but here, they call him a megawatt superstar, Yao Ming’s former teammate, and now Qingdao’s most famous resident. He will be playing with the... Read more »
Allen Iverson and Jason “White Chocolate” Williams were among the more famous basketball players in Beijing on Saturday to take on the defending CBA champs in an exhibition at Beijing National Stadium. (No Dennis Rodman this time.) The Ducks beat the American “All-Stars” 132-103, but all anyone could talk about afterwards was the “juke” that... Read more »
Novak Djokovic's dominance in Beijing continued last night when he defeated Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 7-6 (4), 6-2 in the finals of the China Open, extending his record at this tournament to 14-0. (He also won the 2009 and 2010 titles.) In fact, he dropped just one set in his five matches, which means he was probably never uncomfortable on any of the courts.
That is, until the award ceremony.
While many of his rivals, including Novak Djokovic, are currently in Beijing for the China Open, top-ranked Roger Federer landed in Shanghai yesterday for an event called the Shanghai Rolex Masters. That’s him above, looking nonplussed about death threats against him posted anonymously on a Baidu message board on Thursday. Perhaps he didn’t see this... Read more »
While Stephon Marbury usually commands all the attention, Beijing has a pretty good second foreigner on its basketball team in Randolph Morris. Last year the 6'11'' power forward/center averaged 23.8 points and 7.1 rebounds over the season, and hit the go-ahead free throws with 21.9 seconds left in the championship-clinching Game 5 vs. Guangdong in March. The team re-signed him in the off-season, and yesterday evening, Morris arrived back in town.
The Chinese Basketball Association doesn't take the FIBA Asia Cup very seriously, as a glance at this year's roster will show: every player under 22 years of age, playing against several countries' senior-level teams. But what happens when your team gets paired against Japan in the knockout round amid nationalistic protests back home against this very country?
The Federation of International Roller Sports, in accordance with the World Slalom Skaters Association, held something called the World Freestyle Skating Championships from August 24-26, the sixth year for this event. Forgive us for reporting about it just now. It was hosted at Lishui, Zhejiang province.
Jeremy Lin was in Taiwan on Saturday for the debut of his first TV commercial, a low-budget production (hey, gotta start somewhere) in which he delivers this line:
“No one expected me to be a starter, take game winning shots, or even play in this league. Well, I’m not here to live up to anyone’s expectations, I’m here to live up to mine.”
LeBron James arrived in Beijing yesterday to kick off his four-day promotional tour through China, and there’s a video after his jump of his rather… theatrical first public appearance. The activity was FindYourGreatness, sponsored by Nike, held in Chaoyang Gymnasium. Fast-forward past the acrobats to the 2:30 mark to watch LeBron make his exalted entrance, barely noticing... Read more »
