On The Rebound

TO WATCH the NBA-inflected summitry of the United States' 101--70 victory over China on Sunday night—which LeBron James of the U.S. predicted, probably accurately, would be "the most watched [basketball] game in the history of the world"—was to be humbled by the sport's path in the Middle Kingdom since YMCA missionaries introduced it in 1895. Follow the bouncing ball: through the mid-century, when the People's Liberation Army adopted the game for its barracks; into the Cultural Revolution, when coaches called national team "struggle" meetings to denounce any player who scored too many points; to the mid-1990s, when the Chinese Basketball Association still refused to keep individual statistics and when China Central TV basketball commentator Xu Jicheng, upon first meeting David Stern, told the NBA commissioner that China could be the league's second-biggest market.

"It should be the first," Stern replied.

Like a Madison Avenue Mao, Stern traffics in five- and 10-year plans. At the dawn of the '90s the NBA and its international counterpart, FIBA, risked turning Olympic basketball into an uncompetitive joke by throwing it open to the pros. A decade later no one was laughing. Now, with Yao Ming having established himself as the NBA's first Chinese impact player, the U.S. and China staged that most extraordinary of sporting events, one with cheers all around. In a tapestry of individual highlights, the Americans delivered most of them. China stayed close early by sinking three-pointers, but U.S. defensive pressure led to fatigue and missed threes, many of which the Americans turned into breakaway dunks. Still, the game wasn't an irredeemable mismatch. Yao rejected Kobe Bryant on a drive to the basket in the first half. Yi Jianlian of the New Jersey Nets tap-dunked over Dwight Howard in the second. And commerce lurked in the implications of both plays.

As part of a larger initiative to promote healthy lifestyles, the Chinese government built 60,000 outdoor basketball courts last year and wants to lay down another 700,000 over the next decade so that every village has one. In the southern province of Guangxi, 20,000 teams (not people, teams) took part in the most recent provincial tournament. On Saturday morning at the five Dongdan outdoor courts in central Beijing, you could count jerseys of seven NBA players—Bryant, Gilbert Arenas, Vince Carter, Kevin Garnett, Allen Iverson, Steve Nash, Dwyane Wade—and not a single shirt from the Chinese national team. NBA non-Americans enjoy just as enthusiastic a following: Last week two Chinese women beach volleyball players went into full squeal after spotting Andrei Kirilenko of Russia (or more relevantly, the Utah Jazz) getting a haircut in the Olympic Village. Kirilenko, Yao (Houston Rockets), Germany's Dirk Nowitzki (Dallas Mavericks), Argentina's Manu Ginobili (San Antonio Spurs) and Lithuania's Sarunas Jasikevicius (formerly of the Indiana Pacers and the Golden State Warriors) served as flag-bearers during the opening ceremonies, providing another measure of the NBA's global reach and rank, even as the game is still pulling out of its funk at home.

No NBA personality is more popular in China than Bryant, a.k.a. Xiao Fei Xia, or Little Flying Warrior. In a pre-Games exhibition in Shanghai against Russia on Aug. 3, fans bought up the entire supply of his souvenir USA jersey between the time the doors opened and tip-off, after which they serenaded him with chants of "M-V-P!" Enter Bryant's name in the Chinese search engine Baidu, and more than 300,000 Web pages pop up. "It's really hard to choose whom to cheer for," says Li Dalei, who was sporting an I LOVE KOBE T-shirt at the Dongdan courts on Saturday. "I also like Spain, because Pau Gasol is Kobe's [Los Angeles Lakers] teammate."

The great Xiao Dan of the Red Oxen touched off China's fascination with the NBA, but it was Yao, the first overall pick in 2002, who made it patriotically acceptable for casual Chinese to follow the league. "They knew the NBA was something really good," says Xia. "But with Yao they learned that we have the Number 1 pick, someone who's supposed to be one of the best centers in history. And they know he's a great young man who says and does good things. They can tell their children, 'Behave like Yao.'"

THE NBA is poised to exploit the Beijing Games with a fresh push in China this fall. Earlier this year Hong Kong businessman Li Ka-shing joined ESPN and three other parties in investing $253 million for an 11% stake in NBA China, the first of the NBA's many global consulates to become a business enterprise in its own right. Plans include staging clinics and camps to improve and promote the sport; operating the basketball venue in Beijing and arenas in other Chinese cities after the Olympics; adding media content beyond the half-dozen NBA games already telecast each week; and opening as many as 1,000 retail stores around the country. Stern has said he'd like to launch a league, too, but would only do so with the cooperation of the CBA—a good thing, as there is already grumbling among the Chinese hoops bureaucracy about the Americans' aggressiveness. "We can be very successful [even] without a league [of our own]," says Tim Chen, who took over as CEO of NBA China last October after leading Microsoft's efforts in the People's Republic. "But with a league—if we can figure out a way—we can be even better."

The NBA's global effort hangs in part on Team USA's ability to wipe away memories of its chippy, boo-inducing performance in Athens. On Sunday the U.S. made an auspicious start. "We felt if we could win the crowd over, we were doing something right," guard Jason Kidd said afterward. Added forward Carlos Boozer, "I thought the crowd was going to be more one-sided." With a team schooled in the rudiments of international relations, the U.S. might aspire in basketball to be what Brazil is in soccer: beyond its borders, everyone's second-favorite team.

On Saturday at halftime of the U.S. women's game with the Czech Republic, the men touched off a frenzy when they filed into their seats. With cameras and phones aloft, fans pressed against a cordon of volunteers, who themselves were snapping pictures. As U.S. players stood in turn to wave to the crowd, they brought cascades of cheers. Not 20 yards away sat President George W. Bush, virtually unnoticed. Watching Bush watch the Redeem Team, which has made humility and public diplomacy its watchwords, it was hard not to wonder if he was belatedly taking notes on the deployment of American soft power.

U.S. coach Mike Krzyzew-ski is a fan of the President's father, a former ambassador to China, and last week Coach K did his best to make like the man he calls "41." "If all we do is play basketball, we're not making use of all that the game can give," he said, like some latter-day Ping-Pong diplomat. "Sure you want to win, but what if the game opens some doors that haven't been knocked on? And if a billion people are watching, what message do you want to send? That we're 1--0 in pool play?"