Chris Tang caught our attention in February 2012, when it looked like he might be the best Chinese high school basketball player on the planet. He has the size (6-foot-3 last we checked, though he's likely still growing), the athletic ability, and the shooting touch. He's also enrolled at Oak Hill Academy in Virginia, a veritable factory for basketball players at elite college programs across the country. ...

On Friday, the Los Angeles Lakers’ torturous season suffered another calamity when star guard Kobe Bryant tore his Achilles tendon, ending one of his most impressive statistical seasons on a down note. Though the 34-year-old Bryant has his detractors, his work ethic and ability to battle through injuries are legendary, moving opposing fans and Lakers supporters alike to “#PrayForKobe” on Twitter. Similarly, ...

A first-year student at Jinggangshan University in Ji'an, Jiangxi province was killed on April 9 when a basketball hoop fell on him. This is not in dispute. What is less certain, however, is why the steel hoop fell. "The basket leaned down so it was easy for the 1.71m-height boy to reach. And there was problem with the base," says university publicity chief Guo Chunxin, relayed by Nick Bedard of The Basketb ...

Good news sports fans: some of the planet's top athletes are planning preseason tours to Beijing and Shanghai. Let's start with basketball, the most popular sport this country by some metrics*. For the first time ever, the Los Angeles Lakers are coming to China. They're slated to play the Golden State Warriors on October 15 at the MasterCard Center in Beijing, then October 18 at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in S ...

We're not sure when this happened, but the Black Mamba joined Sina Weibo. He hasn't posted a thing, but more than 160,000 people are anxiously awiting that first message (that number of followers is rapidly increasing, by the way). The last time Kobe Bryant was in China, he did ridiculous things like score 68 points in 15 minutes of a glorified pickup game. People here have also been comparing him to Michae ...

Qu Shitao, a student at Donghua University of Science and Technology in Jiangxi province, lost his right leg when he was three years old, but that hasn't stopped him from playing the sport he loves. When fellow students first saw him hit the outdoor courts, they weren't sure how to react. Go easy on him, right? But Qu, with his trademark spinning layup -- pivoting on his crutch, which he upgraded to a metal ...

Jeremy Lin had a pretty good outing in his Houston Rockets debut on Wednesday, a 105-96 win at Detroit, scoring 12 points with 8 assists and notching a plus/minus of +23. He was overshadowed, however, by another Houston newcomer, James Harden, who played a more or less perfect game: 37 points, 12 assists, 6 rebounds, 4 steals. That's a max-contract player for you. Thanks to these two, Houston has reason to ...

NBA star Kevin Garnett was in China last month to promote his new Anta shoe, the KG III, and it appears that his itinerary included a trip to the set of The Generation Show《年代秀》. He was joined in the studio that day by another major star athlete in China, ping-pong world champion Wang Hao. Naturally, the two played a rally. Naturally, Wang Hao used his off-hand, and still had to take it extra easy on the Bo ...

Freebies are common at NBA games, because who doesn't love them? (Thunderstix? Sure, if they're free!) But whoever's in charge of Chinese arenas should never, ever, under any circumstances willingly hand out objects that could be used as projectiles. Fans here are notorious for throwing things onto courts, embarrassing themselves and everyone involved. They did it again last night -- with the NBA in town. T ...

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 Iverson put on the Ducks' 22-year-old guard, Fang Shuo, just befor ...

In all fairness to LeBron James, his teammates in this video -- Chris Bosh, Mario Chalmers, Rashard Lewis, Dwyane Wade, and Mike Miller -- weren't exactly Dashan. And Shane Battier didn't even try! That's the dude who's endorsed by Peak and "super famous" here, according to Miami New Times (which, in a bit of an overstatement, also says Chinese fans "worship him). The last time James was in China, he was wa ...

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? As Jon Pastuszek of NiuBBall pointed out last w ...

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 the big red throne (intentionally ...

Via The Basketball Jones First, the picture, taken on Thursday in Wuhan as part of Kobe Bryant's annual Nike tour: it is ridiculous. Reports the LA Times: This is the seventh summer in a row that Bryant has visited China, including the 2008 Beijing Olympics. On this trip, according to published accounts, Bryant has hosted training clinics at Jinan in China's Shandong province and in Wuhan in Hubei province. ...

Australia beat Brazil 70-66 yesterday to clinch a spot in the quarterfinals, but all anyone is talking about is Liz Cambage's dunk, which people are agreeing is the first-ever in women's basketball in the Olympics. Because there's no chance you'll see the video on a website that doesn't have the server capacity to directly upload files, you might appreciate this GIF, courtesy of China. (H/T Alicia) ...

The refs plain botched this. Chinese commentators during the game -- one of whom was Yao Ming -- speculated that maybe none of the three refs on the court -- all of them staring at the play -- could believe Serge Ibaka could actually do this -- jump, bounce the ball, come down with it, then shoot -- and were too stunned to blow the whistle. In any case, play went on, everyone continued to remain shocked, an ...

The Jordan brand is producing a series of mini-documentaries about basketball around the world, with the inspirational hashtag #RISEABOVE. Of course they had to go to China, and of course they had to borrow the narrative from Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea: lone traveler finds himself in remote part of the world; traveler is injured, healed by "shaman"; traveler returns to isolated village to build some ...

The National Basketball League (NBL) is a semi-pro basketball league managed by the same suits who control the top-tier Chinese Basketball Association (CBA). The NBL's playoffs are currently happening, but they're not happening very well. As Jon Pastuszek of NiuBBall reports, "I invite you to keep an eye on the NBL playoffs, where not one, but two all-out brawls went down inside of three days last Friday an ...

I'm ashamed to admit that I missed this Shanghai Daily article from Saturday announcing a partnership between the NBA and Shanghai Film Group to produce Amazing. It "tells the story of a fictional world known as 'The Sixth Sense.' It uses basketball imagery to combine the visual elements of a video game with a movie, akin to the 2010 American science fiction film 'Tron: Legacy.'" That does sound amazing, ac ...