UPDATE, 9:37 am: My headline originally misidentified the gender of the person holding the “kids” sign (upon closer inspection, as pointed out in the comments section, the person holding the sign does not look to be a dude after all). Everything makes a lot more sense now, though at the cost of being funny.

Allen Iverson and his touring teammates landed in Taiyuan, Shanxi yesterday, a place with notoriously rowdy fans who are… well, let’s just call them unorthodox. Jon Pastuszek over at NiuBball is all over this. The headline to his post is classically understated: “Some fans in China like Allen Iverson a little too much…”

After Michael Jordan and possibly Kobe Bryant, A.I. is easily the most popular all-time NBAer in China. During the trip, he has been met by flocks of fans who wait at airports, hotels, restaurants, promotional events and stadiums with the hope that they can catch a glimpse of their beloved Answer.

In this sign below, I wonder what word the “I” is supposed to be. Imperial? But that fourth letter is definitely an “a.” Did she mean nonpareil, just didn’t know how to spell it?

Either way, a man as difficult to understand as AI deserves fans who are also slightly off kilter. China needs AI. It works the other way, too.

Former NBA stars Allen Iverson and Dennis Rodman were in Cixi, Zhejiang earlier this week to scrimmage against the Beijing Ducks, which still has (the newly minted) Stephon Marbury, as part of an eight-game, multi-team tour. One Beijing player said it was a dream to play against AI. Ducks coach Min Lulei, however, had no use for such sentiment. He chided his team in the post-game press conference for not taking the opening game seriously enough, which strikes me as just silly — the Ducks are a month removed from winning the CBA championship, and they haven’t practiced together since.

The American team won Game 1 121-104 on Saturday (Iverson scored 11 points), and won Game 2 128-125 on Monday (Iverson did a little better, with 13 points to Marbury’s 22). AI will have to do a little better than that if he wants to raise his stock among Chinese teams. As you’ve no doubt heard by now, he says he’s interested in the CBA, replying “why not?” to the question of playing here. Putting up a combined 24 points against star-crossed opponents should make CBA team officials ask: Why?

Here’s some more game footage. And here is AI arriving in Shanghai’s Pudong Airport. Video of the top embed on Youku for those in China after the jump.