Nate Duncan likes to say in regards to coaches "It's not why should I fire you it's why should I keep you" and the NBA will one day realize China follows that same rule. For most of the world things are banned for a reason - Serbians can have the NBA not because the NBA does anything for Serbia but because Serbia (like most countries) doesn't have a reason to ban them. China functions in a fundamentally different way. In China being banned is the default. You have to prove not why you should be fired but why you should be kept, and I simply do not see how the NBA can continue to justify being kept.
Setting aside the population genetics/height distribution factor, as well as the top-down intervention failures of hard-institutions, what might be limiting the emergence of a feisty Chinese guard in the mould of Campazzo or Barea? Individuals with their physical characteristics probably abound in China and if they were even 70% of the two players I mention, I would expect an NBA team to give them garbage time minutes, at the very minimum.
My intuition suggests there are cultural/soft-institutional factors at play but I haven't quite figured out how to express it accurately or tactfully.
Maybe you or the other commenters could speculate on reasons?
This is a good addendum to the apparel companies and players and how the players have been bought and paid for by China, and how the NBA brass has been coopted as well. Of all the people in the NBA who love to speak about things they know little of it takes a guy who had a row with his very mediocre dictator in his home country to show what actual courage looks like.
BTW Rudy Gobert had a very quiet tweet critical of China last year but it was like Biden's diminished capacity and everyone tried to not bring it up and it never blew up.
Kyrie is leaving millions on the table for a mildly effective not very scary vaccine, but even he hasn't said one word about China? He'll lose millions to avoid a simple vaccine but still shuts up on queue for the middle kingdom.
Fantastic article, as usual. The one thing I'm stumbling over (and I take this to be a common perspective that Ethan is relaying, rather than his own opinion) is the paragraph about "flabby savants from the Balkans": it just seems sad to me that the prominence of players like Jokic and Doncic is taken to represent a kind of Pyrrhic victory for NBA's globalism, as indicative of failure as it is of success... One could just as easily see it as a real triumph in its own right that we do in fact have players from such far-flung places winning MVPs... like, that's honestly really cool, and NBA's aspirations paying off in an unexpected way! But since the dollar signs don't add up the way they might with a Chinese (or maybe Brazilian, etc.) superstar, it gets treated as a letdown.
An exploration into why the China fails to produce NBA players would be fascinating. I’m sure there are a whole range of interesting people who would have great insights into why, despite all the resources that have been committed, no one off prominence has shown up since Yao. Peter Hessler wrote a great profile on Yao in 2003 for the The New Yorker, and he delves into this subject. One of the points he raises about why Chinese NBA players are so few and far between is because of the Chinese sports system. He said it was rigid, exclusive and dominated by bureaucracy. He says there is an excessive focus on drills and fitness but little emphasis on what David Epstein would call “play”. Such an approach to sport succeeds in disciplines like gymnastics or diving(where China excels), Hessler says, but doesn’t lend itself too in basketball when there are just so many variables. Also, the obsessions with kids physical tools from a young age? Hessler uses a great example of Allen Iverson. He asks rhetorically, what would the Chinese sports officials make of an undersized kid from a broken home?
I have long thought that the NBA's obsession with China over all other parts of the world was misguided. The premise of tapping into a market that loves basketball and adores the stars of the game is a sound one but the NBA failed to understand that it is not the only game in town. Chinese fans love football and it was a preferred agenda for President Xi's government for a long time. It is no surprise that we saw Chinese companies who were favoured by the government go in and buy top level clubs. Inter Milan and AC Milan, two of the most successful clubs in Italy, were owned by Chinese companies.
It is only in 2021 when the Chinese government have realised that pursuing these lofty ambitions is costly and does not necessarily generate the soft power that they were looking for. The love for the game still remains among the wider population though.
The NBA's mistake is not cultivating relationships in countries where they have star players who can promote the product. Serbia is a basketball-obsessed country, it must be possible to do better on the TV rights than they currently do. The NBA building relationships with stakeholders in countries like Serbia, Spain, Greece, Slovenia, Germany and France is necessary for building a portfolio of overseas broadcast revenue that is not dependent on one, slightly strained partner.
David Thorpe says basketball is jazz, and I don’t see a ton of jazz musicians coming out of China either. Wonder if something about the flow and spirit of basketball somehow doesn’t mesh well with cultural and societal factors of China and limits the upside of prospects
Silver will have to do some real work of building back up the NBA brand in US vs. counting $ from China and getting instagram and Twitter likes. Unfortunately, building back up the NBA in US will be very difficult and I'm not sure he is up to challenge.
Great article! Just one minor thing China was not a Soviet ally in any sense of the word in 1984, eg they were supporting the mujahideen against the soviets.
Nate Duncan likes to say in regards to coaches "It's not why should I fire you it's why should I keep you" and the NBA will one day realize China follows that same rule. For most of the world things are banned for a reason - Serbians can have the NBA not because the NBA does anything for Serbia but because Serbia (like most countries) doesn't have a reason to ban them. China functions in a fundamentally different way. In China being banned is the default. You have to prove not why you should be fired but why you should be kept, and I simply do not see how the NBA can continue to justify being kept.
The pistons beat the lakers in game 1 of the nba finals on June 5, 1989. There was no game played the day prior. Nothing happened that day.
This is a really good article. Another example where you said what i had been feeling for some time but couldn’t articulate
bing bong diplomacy
Setting aside the population genetics/height distribution factor, as well as the top-down intervention failures of hard-institutions, what might be limiting the emergence of a feisty Chinese guard in the mould of Campazzo or Barea? Individuals with their physical characteristics probably abound in China and if they were even 70% of the two players I mention, I would expect an NBA team to give them garbage time minutes, at the very minimum.
My intuition suggests there are cultural/soft-institutional factors at play but I haven't quite figured out how to express it accurately or tactfully.
Maybe you or the other commenters could speculate on reasons?
Wang Zhizhi ain’t walkin through that door!
RIP David Stern. The league desperately misses your leadership day after day..
This is a good addendum to the apparel companies and players and how the players have been bought and paid for by China, and how the NBA brass has been coopted as well. Of all the people in the NBA who love to speak about things they know little of it takes a guy who had a row with his very mediocre dictator in his home country to show what actual courage looks like.
BTW Rudy Gobert had a very quiet tweet critical of China last year but it was like Biden's diminished capacity and everyone tried to not bring it up and it never blew up.
Kyrie is leaving millions on the table for a mildly effective not very scary vaccine, but even he hasn't said one word about China? He'll lose millions to avoid a simple vaccine but still shuts up on queue for the middle kingdom.
Fantastic article, as usual. The one thing I'm stumbling over (and I take this to be a common perspective that Ethan is relaying, rather than his own opinion) is the paragraph about "flabby savants from the Balkans": it just seems sad to me that the prominence of players like Jokic and Doncic is taken to represent a kind of Pyrrhic victory for NBA's globalism, as indicative of failure as it is of success... One could just as easily see it as a real triumph in its own right that we do in fact have players from such far-flung places winning MVPs... like, that's honestly really cool, and NBA's aspirations paying off in an unexpected way! But since the dollar signs don't add up the way they might with a Chinese (or maybe Brazilian, etc.) superstar, it gets treated as a letdown.
An exploration into why the China fails to produce NBA players would be fascinating. I’m sure there are a whole range of interesting people who would have great insights into why, despite all the resources that have been committed, no one off prominence has shown up since Yao. Peter Hessler wrote a great profile on Yao in 2003 for the The New Yorker, and he delves into this subject. One of the points he raises about why Chinese NBA players are so few and far between is because of the Chinese sports system. He said it was rigid, exclusive and dominated by bureaucracy. He says there is an excessive focus on drills and fitness but little emphasis on what David Epstein would call “play”. Such an approach to sport succeeds in disciplines like gymnastics or diving(where China excels), Hessler says, but doesn’t lend itself too in basketball when there are just so many variables. Also, the obsessions with kids physical tools from a young age? Hessler uses a great example of Allen Iverson. He asks rhetorically, what would the Chinese sports officials make of an undersized kid from a broken home?
It’s a great piece for anyone who is interested:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/12/01/home-and-away
I have long thought that the NBA's obsession with China over all other parts of the world was misguided. The premise of tapping into a market that loves basketball and adores the stars of the game is a sound one but the NBA failed to understand that it is not the only game in town. Chinese fans love football and it was a preferred agenda for President Xi's government for a long time. It is no surprise that we saw Chinese companies who were favoured by the government go in and buy top level clubs. Inter Milan and AC Milan, two of the most successful clubs in Italy, were owned by Chinese companies.
It is only in 2021 when the Chinese government have realised that pursuing these lofty ambitions is costly and does not necessarily generate the soft power that they were looking for. The love for the game still remains among the wider population though.
The NBA's mistake is not cultivating relationships in countries where they have star players who can promote the product. Serbia is a basketball-obsessed country, it must be possible to do better on the TV rights than they currently do. The NBA building relationships with stakeholders in countries like Serbia, Spain, Greece, Slovenia, Germany and France is necessary for building a portfolio of overseas broadcast revenue that is not dependent on one, slightly strained partner.
David Thorpe says basketball is jazz, and I don’t see a ton of jazz musicians coming out of China either. Wonder if something about the flow and spirit of basketball somehow doesn’t mesh well with cultural and societal factors of China and limits the upside of prospects
This is so great. It’s nice to see someone actually writing about this.
Silver will have to do some real work of building back up the NBA brand in US vs. counting $ from China and getting instagram and Twitter likes. Unfortunately, building back up the NBA in US will be very difficult and I'm not sure he is up to challenge.
Great article! Just one minor thing China was not a Soviet ally in any sense of the word in 1984, eg they were supporting the mujahideen against the soviets.