yeah good money for the Aus teams to be there ..like China has got a population of zillions !!! better exposure too for Aus playas

so that was why you didn't come on and give kobe a rest yesterday, you were in China. Thats quite a distance between your tongue and Kobe's arse?

Yeh, i knew australia was superior to china but i didn't realise to what extent til i saw the aussie under 17 team play china U17s in sydney a few months ago. China had 3 guys over 7 foot, australia no one over 6ft 8. China played jungle ball the whole time, they had 3 or 4 players who thought they were kobe bryant and were overly flashy at all times and had no sense of giving the extra pass to find the open man. Australia won on the boards, and the game by about 40 points from memory.

I totally agree china and australia need to form more ties. But the nba has already said they want to create a pan-nba league there, so we've probably missed the boat. Hong Kong and Taipei would be good places to start.

I just got back from a 3 week trip to China - socially the game is massive - there are courts every where teaming with people.

A majority of them wearing jeans, taking ridiculously stupid fadeaway jump shots and not one of them playing D =)

I guess it comes down to not much coaching being available.

That said, it was everywhere we went so who knows how good they could become in the future.

Totally agree with connecting with China. If we can sort out our league and get some financially stable clubs, I think our first priority should be to get an end of season tournament running with the Chinese and perhaps The Phillipines as well. Top two NBL clubs qualify and play the Chinese and Filipino league winners. Sell the rights to One HD and make it a decent amount of prize money. You have the embryonic stages of an Asian Champions League of basketball.

I have very little doubt that this would be a success and attract the kind of domestic interest basketball in this country needs. There would be a lot of people who would tune in to see an 'Aussie' team take on overseas competition on FTA. Get people interested in an NBL team that way, and they will naturally start to pay more attention to how that team goes in the national league.

it needs to be done in order for basketball to survive in this country at a professionla level. It's starting to become obvious that the NBL in itself can't save basketball as a viable sport that the general sport public wants.

An Asian Championship would bring much added excitement and drama to the local competition and palces like China and Philippines - where basketabll is just about "king" would bring fan following, huge audiences and exposure

I understand NBA's trying to do something but it seems like Europe will take priority for now.

You guys 100% right about those guys who play there. Pretty much no defense and taking poor shots (eg fadeaways without a proper set shots yet). I don't mind those fadeaways, pull up jumpers but not when they can't even shoot straight up shots.

Here's another idea. How about if NBL just sign a Chinese star as import for the sake drawing crowd? Just like NBA, the crowd will just try follow their star wherever their stars are playing at. Therefore $$$ for NBL.

Curtley, That game in Sydney was Under 18s and that was in the pool game. In the final, China were winning the whole game and looked like winning if it wasn't for an Aussie fightback. I played against the Chinese at that same tournament, and they are lighting fast, amazing hops and good shooters and penetrators.

I think that Chinese basketball is really strong is some areas and weak in some areas. i.e. I think that the best players in China work very hard, but other than those players there aren't many good developmental programs. There is a great inequality between the best and worst Chinese players.

Also Curtley, the players that made up that Chinese squad were very talented. One of them led the tournament in scoring and another had 7/17 3-pointers in the final. The leading scorer for the tournament had gone to the Nike Asia Camps in the past. There was some good players in that team. They lost because the Chinese coaches dont believe in Strength and Conditioning. Alot of them didn't like the physicality and thus didn't have good muscular endurance. Judging on the Chinese team in Sydney:

-Chinese coaches do HEAPS of speed stuff e.g ladders, sprints, quick feet drills
-Chinese coaches don't encourage strength and conditioning exercise e.g. weight training
-Chinese coaches don't work on the little things i.e. good technique..They are more worried about the result than the technique used to acheive that result(One example was the PG who had a terrible shot..Ugly as but still effective)

These are just a few of the things that Australia coaches reiterate and teach, that Chinese coaches don't. Thats one of the big differences...Australia coaches provide holistic education...Been good in all areas, however Chinese coaches seem to focus on speed first and formost.

SKUX101- my opinion is they have poor fundamentals. They have decent hops and speed as a result of the amount of time they spend playing the game IMO.

Due to their lack in physicality they are extremely poor defensively.

Great posts in this thread, especially from those with first hand experience.

I do wonder if Chinese interest in pro-US basketball will wane like it did in Australia, or if their alternatives (volleyball, table tennis, what else?) will rise to take over?

Certainly it's very, very popular over there right now. I'm not sure if the NBL can really engineer a combined league though, or if any team would be willing to use an import spot - see the Liu Wei experiment.

I think it'd be hard for basketball to die in China for the reason that Chinese seems to love US culture and almost everyone is playing basketball over there it's crazy. Basketball seems to be more popular there than in the states! And that's crazy!

To combine the league is definitely no easy task but this is what would test out NBL's ability to get things done. Even if not, creating an Asian Pacific Club tournament will also be great.

Not so sure about the the Liu Wei experiment, he a Chinese? or Singaporean? How did he play? Was he a star in China? If we can steal one of their top 5 play in CBA, surely it'll draw lots of fans just to keep track on how he's doing.

LA Boy, you could say the same about basketball in Australia before the rise of patriotism was one thing that drove it back down. The same could well happen in China once the Chinese no longer look to emulate everything American.

Liu Wei is Chinese and was, at around that time, a starter for the Chinese national team I think. He suited in the NBL All Star game one year and didn't have much of an impact.

I don't think an NBL team could afford a CBA star and get the equivalent impact from it. If Asian players were not restricted, that could change things, but then potentially takes further spots from Australian players - might only be particularly effective in an Asian/Oceanic league rather than the NBL alone.

in reality basketball in Australia hasn't died down when you look at the participation level, NBL has due to poor management, while affecting broadcast of the game in general in this country. Whilst now NBA's back on lot of people seems to be getting back into it.

so was it just a one game thing with Liu? Even if he didn't make much impact but I bet Chinese would of followed how he went that particular game.

I have thought alot about allowing 1 Asian player on each team scernario. Which potentially takes away 8~12 jobs (depend on how many teams in the league) but if this can generate much more revenue, you have to go with some products made in China here and there just to survive I guess.

Just from having played a bit of pickup basketball with a few Chinese people in Adelaide, I've got some observations about why they play the way they do:

- A lot of Chinese people aren't that tall, so the fadeway jump shot is used (like with most people) to get room for their shot. As a lot of what they do is US 'streetball' kind of stuff, they obviously place a lot of importance on not getting your shot blocked, and make a big deal when someone blocks a shot (make sure people feel a bit embarassed and so on).

- Again, with their physical stature, I think they just don't have the bodies to naturally play a physical style on the offensive or defensive end, so combined with the showy 'streetball' style, they are naturally more finesse-oriented.

That being said, they seem to like to play a team-based kind of game, rather than just 1-on-1 stuff, which is kind of odd considering the heavy 'streetball' influence that they seem to have.

I think they just fades away all the time because NBA does it. Because in reality many don't even have a straight up jumper.

When I was there, they loved the isolation plays, I mean the only time the were passing was a drive and dish which is quite different to straight up pass. Drive and dish is much fancier, so I won't quite call it team-base orientated. Ausralian style in my mind is a classic example of team styled basketball. In fact I really think they rely on it too much.

I honestly think for Aussie basketball to go up the next level it'll be the ability of players to create their own shots, therefore pull up jumpers, fadeaways etc. This'll also come with a better strength and conditioning program. Right now there's probably only one player in NBL who can really create his own shot, James Harvey (not counting imports).

the fadeaway is unstoppable - when you see the great one - Kobe do it !!

yeah I love them but you don't do fadeaways when you can't shoot properly to start with.