Pacific Heights: A trio of Chinese seven-footers are walking tall, and basketball scouts are watching and waiting

By Tim Noonan(From NBA.com/Hoop Magazine)
Posted on October 11

Necks craned, jaws dropped and eyeballs bulged wherever the Chinese National Team appeared in Sydney. Towering over their teammates and coaches were three seven-footers -- not one, three. What surprised onlookers as much as their great height was that they were Chinese, a race not known for longitude. The typical Chinese athletes are the pixies on the balance beam or the elegant but tiny divers on the 10-meter platform. But 7-6 Yao Ming, 7-1 Wang Zhizhi and 7-0 Menk Bateer are not your typical Chinese athletes. They play basketball, a sport that the Chinese don't excel at but could in the future.

The basketball community couldn't help but look up when "The Walking Great Wall" made its Olympic entrance. Coach Jiang Xing Quan sought to minimize expectations by declaring his team would be happy to finished eighth in the 2000 Olympics, thus equaling its best performance in an international tournament. But even before they pulled on their uniforms, Yao Ming, Wang Zhizhi and Menk Bateer had already made an impression on the world basketball stage simply by, well, showing up.

The fascination continues on the court. Wang, 23, is the most polished, both offensively and defensively, with skills players a foot shorter would covet. Menk, 25, is a powerful force at nearly 300 pounds. But Yao, only 20, is clearly the jewel, an unpolished Amazon on one hand, possessing coordination, smarts and a huge upside on the other.

Height has long been the ultimate aphrodisiac for basketball coaches, capable of turning a decent coach into a genius. Never mind a player like Yao making his teammates better; he elevates his coach's IQ by 30 or 40 points.

A guard gets beat defensively? So what? Yao will be back there to swat away any layup attempts. A forward backing off from a long-range shooter? Big deal. If the shot doesn't fall, there's about a 100-percent chance Yao will consume the rebound. Indeed, Yao owns a complete game, athletic coordination and a yearning to fit in. Some say the one fault Yao has is that he is too generous, too nice. But Philadelphia 76ers coach Larry Brown is already a believer; he compared Yao to Bill Walton as a UCLA freshman.

"He just turned 20 and he plays like he is still slightly embarrassed by his huge size advantage," said Tom McCarthy, an Asian Basketball Confederation executive. "Within a few years, when he polishes his game and decides unabashedly to take over, he will dominate."

Yao is not yet at that level, but his performance in Sydney offered a sneak preview of what lies ahead: His six rebounds per game placed him sixth overall in the tournament, and he finished second only to Alonzo Mourning by a slim margin in blocks per game (2.3 to 2.2). Then there was Wang, whose average of 13.5 points placed him eighth among Olympic scorers.

"Wang Zhizhi is ready for the NBA right now," said former Louisiana State coach Dale Brown, who tried unsuccessfully to recruit Wang to play at LSU. "In Asia, he is a man among boys. He has to get some real competition."

The Dallas Mavericks' thoughts, exactly. They drafted Wang in the second round (36th overall) of the 1999 NBA Draft, and have been trying to get the big man to Dallas ever since.

Clearly, the trio of towers made its mark in the minds of basketball aficionados the world over.

"I think all three of China's big guys can make it in the NBA," said former NBA great Rick Barry, who coached a team of retired stars in a recent exhibition against China's national team. "But they have to get them some good tutors and better competition.

"Yao Ming has got an unbelievable future. I watched tape of him from the Asian Championships last year and he has made major improvements since then. I would send him over to Clifford Ray in the United States for a year, [a former teammate of Barry's who is renowned for his work with big men], and the change would be stunning. I think Bateer can be a nice backup center in the NBA. And how many 7-1 guys do you see who are as athletic as Wang Zhizhi? None that I can think of. I mean think of the player pool they have to draw from here - nobody, not even the U.S., can match it."

In China, the NBA is watched by 150 to 200 million viewers weekly. Just like most of their Asian neighbors, Chinese basketball fans sport the colors and paraphernalia of their favorite NBA club. If all goes according to plan, however, Chinese NBA fans may soon get an opportunity to watch, and wear, the exploits of one of their own. With his NBA rights owned by the Mavericks, it has long appeared that Wang would be the first to break through, but getting him to Dallas has proven difficult.

"Wang Zhizhi is capable of doing many great things on a basketball court," said Mavericks assistant coach Donn Nelson. "We knew when we drafted him, it would be a challenge getting him over here right away."

Despite its star players looking down at the opposition from their lofty heights, the Chinese team lived down to its coach's prophecy, finishing 10th out of 12 teams in Sydney. While it had no problem scoring, China's lack of a game plan and defensive intensity proved to be its undoing. But better international competition and growing interest from the NBA and other leagues may yet awaken the sleeping basketball giant.

A knowing glance into China's vast talent pool paints a staggering picture: Tang Zhengdong, a 7-1, 18-year-old from Jiangsu Province, and 19-year-old Xue Yuyang of Henan Province, a 7-0 wonder reported to possess a complete game, are waiting in the wings.

As they say, you can't teach height. And surprisingly, Chinese seven-footers are not in short supply. The fortunes of basketball in China are looking up - literally as well as figuratively.

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TIM NOONAN is a sports columnist with the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong and announces Asian basketball games on Star TV. He has written for a number of publications, including TIME magazine, Forbes, The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, The Wall Street Journal and The Independent on Sunday.