China's basketball mission not impossible
By Jesse Fink
With China's national football team consigned to another four years of World
Cup purgatory, and its Olympic team virtual no-hopers, the focus for Chinese
sports fans wanting to shake the world order up at Beijing 2008 turns to
basketball.
And what better sport to do it.
Basketball is the international sport du jour for young urban tribes; so in a
country such as the People's Republic, where open space is at a premium and
megacities are sprouting like mushrooms, hoops is finding a real toehold where
football has hitherto struggled.
The 16-team local basketball league is going strong, Yao Ming is
becoming as recognizable as Tiger Woods, and the sport is rising as fast as
China's position in the international money market.
Like its economy, China is threatening to show up the United States in
basketball, and the power shift can't be too far away. China opens its men's
basketball campaign against the US on August 10 and, while few pundits are
giving the host nation much chance against the US's so-called "Redeem Team",
the Americans are fielding arguably their weakest lineup in years, with no tall
timber a la Patrick Ewing and Shaquille O'Neal. China, meanwhile, is
stacked with towering monsters.
All the portents of an upset are in the mix. And what an upset it would be.
With America fading as a superpower and China rising, losing at basketball
would be the last straw, nothing short of a national disaster.
All I can say is: Bring it on.
Speaking as an Australian, the Olympics are as much for our country about
getting one over the Americans as they are about winning medals. In fact I'd
wager that for the average Australian beating Americans at anything is a far
greater reward than any Oreo-sized chunk of precious metal.
Our small nation's pathological zeal in whupping Yanks began with Australia II
's memorable victory over Liberty in the 1983 America's Cup yacht race.
Yes, a yacht race (Aussies, an indiscriminating rabble at the best of times,
will stoop to watch anything with a finish line), but a yacht race steeped in
importance and divine purpose because an American crew hadn't lost it in 132
years.
When John Bertrand's crew won the deciding race on September 26, 1983,
Australia went bananas. Carried away with emotion and perhaps the effects of
too many tinnies, our hard-drinking prime minister of the time, Bob Hawke,
loudly declared, "Any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up today is a bum."
Why does it feel so good to beat a Yank?
It's not like the entire world dislikes Americans; in fact the US has
some great allies. Some of which even went to war with them in Iraq. Most of
the world craves American pop culture more than their own. But they are hated
all the same. And no more so than in basketball, a native professional sport in
the United States that plays host to more out-of-control egos than the Kodak
Theater at the Academy Awards.
Every Olympic Games, Team USA and its caravan of bling descends on the host
city with the same subtlety as Paris Hilton's entourage at a Vegas nightclub,
instantly raising the hackles of the locals.
For China at Beijing 2008, a slice of the same tantalizing sporting schadenfreude
is on offer.
China has never been exactly welcoming to barbarian invaders - the Boxer
Rebellion, anyone? - so don't be fooled by all those cutesy Visa ads featuring
Jackie Chan and Yao Ming.
Forget topping the medal count. Beating Team USA is China's number one mission
at this year's Olympiad. The USA-China men's Group B clash is already the
hot-ticket item of the Games; in a sign of its importance, President George W
Bush recently slipped Chinese President Hu Jintao a fiver to secure himself and
the First Lady some seats in the bleachers.
The question is: Does China stand any chance? Probably not.
China did not finish among the medals at the previous Olympics or world
championships, but by the same token the flashy USA team has underperformed,
returning bronze in both tournaments and being vanquished by the likes of
Lithuania and Greece.
Even with stars of the caliber of Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and Kobe Bryant,
the Americans are a pale imitation of so-called "Dream Teams" of the past.
Their selection philosophy is clearly to fill positions with role players such
as Tayshaun Prince rather than ring in the best available wattage. The idea is
to build team cohesion over the long term and not everyone is happy. American
hoops fans are by and large underwhelmed by coach Mike Krzyzewski's picks, and,
having seen their national team fail time and time again of late, aren't
expecting any walkovers.
Their first opponents, China, will know adopting a physical approach early, as
Australia's humble Boomers have demonstrated in the past, can affect the USA's
composure and unsettle their shape. If the Chinese can go in hard early, block
some shots and niggle and gnaw at the Americans, they are in with a shot of
causing an upset.
On its day, the physical approach sometimes works for the Chinese football
team, as I wrote for Asia Times Online a few weeks ago in
Why kung fu never won a World Cup. China's women's hoops team managed
to do something similar to the US in the final of an invitational tournament in
Beijing in April.
China has some NBA quality in its ranks - Yao Ming, Yi Jianlin, Wang Zhizhi -
and is on a winning streak (it recently notched up its 10th-straight victory in
pre-Olympic friendlies) but the key, I believe, is still going to be a bit of
old-school roughhouse tactics.
Let's be frank: even with a weakened USA selection, the likelihood of a Chinese
victory over the Americans is still remote, even fanciful, but if there's a
time for the Chinese men's team to start believing in themselves, and backing
that belief up with a bit of "hardball", it's now.
With 350 million hardcore fans behind them, and a billion more of the
fair-weather variety in tow, they've got a real shot at Olympic immortality
and, better still, wiping the floor with some prized Yankee snouts.
Jesse Fink is a leading football writer in Australia. He is the author of
the critically acclaimed book 15 Days in June: How Australia Became a
Football Nation and has won various awards in Australia for his sports writing.
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