This makes Marbury the highest profile foreign basketball player to ever play in the CBA, and at age 32 he still has a lot left in the tank.  Marbury takes the title of most renown basketball player to ever play professionally in China from  Bonzi Wells  – who was also signed by Shanxi but left the club after just 2 months despite leading the league in scoring with a ridiculous 46 points per game average.

While he’s only a shadow of his former self, Marbury still has plenty of athleticism left in him and more skills than most NBA point guards today. However, in his later days in the NBA “Coney Island’s finest” was seen more of a laughing stock than a streetball legend. His weird interviews, unorthodox post game statements, and fast decline as a basketball player as last seen for the Boston Celtics last year make him an interesting target to follow, and will perhaps spark interest in the CBA from abroad.

As for Marbury’s entrepreneurial side, it’s nothing short of remarkable. The Starbury Brand which he and Ben Wallace endorse is marketed by clothing retail chain Steve & Barry’s  and manufactured in China. The Starbury brand has been the  former All-Star point guard’s main source of passion for some time now, and even sparked a debate between himself and LeBron James:

Prior to a game, upon being asked whether he could see himself promoting a shoe at the 15$ price point that Marbury’s shoes are priced  at.”No, I don’t think so,” James said. “Me being with Nike, we hold our standards high.”

Stephon’s response – “I’d rather own than be owned.”

Marbury mentions his younger days and not being able to afford a good pair of basketball shoes as his main inspiration behind the business – and what better place to continue his mission of making accessible cheap and high quality shoes than in China . There were speculation for some time now that he would play somewhere in Italy and promote his basketball shoes there, but it seems the right business move to promote his brand in China instead. Stephon’s long been known in his career for failing to lead his team to any kind of success, but in China he has his shot at redemption  – even if it is for a much different kind of success.

This brings us to today and the sudden transformation of a basketball team, a city, and perhaps of the sporting world in general. It all started more than a year ago when Cavaliers Vice-Chairman and part owner David Katzman and his Camelot Venture Group (amidst a business fallout with majority owner Dan Gilbert), decided to sell a part of the Cleveland Cavaliers in China. Prospective buyers were narrowed down, and over the past year negotiations and details have been ironed out. In Mr. Katzman’s own words, the background of the buyer was of importance in making the deal work:

“It was very important to us that whoever acquired our ownership piece be able to add value to the team and also realize the appreciation to the value of the team that was created over the past 4 years.”

This is where Kenny Huang came in, the young, smart, and connected Chinese business man that has as good insight on the China-US business world as you can possibly find. He is the man who has been involved both at home and abroad trying to take advantage of the growth of basketball in Asia and China’s growing sports marketing opportunities. Huang had put together a group of investors several months ago that looked ready to buy a significant stake in the Cavs, but several of the investors have meanwhile changed – prolonging this process longer than expected.

It was announced yesterday that the deal has been finalized with Albert Hung (Hung Chao Hong), one of the richest man in Hong Kong, as the primary financier of the deal – making him the first Chinese owner of an American sports franchise. The Cleveland Cavaliers are valued around $475 million  by Forbes, which would mean that Albert Hung will pay out a sum near $60 million  in cash to acquire the rights to 15% of the Cleveland Cavaliers from David Katzman.

This may seem like an interesting way to finance an American basketball team, but it’s not unheard of. Although investment tends to come from sources more traditional than a big-time player at partypoker.com china, getting investors interested is always important – the UK’s Chelsea Football Club became one of the best in the world once Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich invested his considerable wealth in their upkeep. It just goes to show – money from the outside is never something to turn down.

Unlike New Jersey’s soon to be new Russian owner and controversial figure Mikhail Prokhorov, Albert Hung is the ideal owner for an NBA franchise. As Cleveland.com reports:

Hung is a member of numerous powerful groups and committees including: the Standing Committee of National Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the Vice President of China Sports Foundation, Vice Chairman of Major Sports Events Committee, the President of All Stars Sports Association Ltd. of Hong Kong, and Vice President and Director of the South China Athletic Association.

Perhaps his most valuable political affiliation is with the Hong Kong Selection Committee, which is the group that elects the chief executive of the massive Asian commerce and cultural hub.

If there were those wondering what kind of business opportunities and synergy this sort of deal would open up, few precious hours were wasted answering such concerns. Tsingtao, China’s most popular beer and also most well known international brand, has just signed a multi-year partnership with the Quicken Loans Arena and the Cleveland Cavaliers. The partnership will no doubt increase Tsingtao’s image and reputation in international markets as well as strengthening it’s brand back on home soil. Millions of basketball fans will be able to see Tsingtao billboards and ads plastered around the stadium through the 34 Cavs games scheduled to broadcast in China during the 09-10 NBA season. Further details of the deal include:

In addition to being the exclusive Chinese beer of Quicken Loans Arena, the Tsingtao partnership elements include:

• LED signage during Cavaliers games and Quicken Loans Arena events
• Permanent signage inside Quicken Loans Arena for all arena events (cLose Weight Exercise/”>Lose Weight Exercise to 200 annually)
• Basket pole pad signage for Cavaliers games
• Hospitality benefits during Cavaliers game and Quicken Loans Arena events
• Ad placement in Tip Off Tonight, the Cavaliers official game night program
• Strong presence on digital properties, cavs.com and CavFanatic.com
• Community relations outreach program designed to educate and share cultural ideas in northeast Ohio

As can be seen, the Cleveland Cavaliers are well on their way to an exciting journey along with their Chinese business owners. The opportunities and potential out there is immense and the pieces have already started moving. One major determinant of the success of the Cleveland Cavaliers will no doubt be LeBron James himself. LeBron’s free agency tales have been a topic of discussion forever it seems, or at least ever since he set foot into an NBA arena. If LeBron’s actions are anything to go by, it seems that there is some legitimate threat that the King could leave the Cavaliers at the end of this season and go somewhere like New York where the lights shine brighter, and the audience is more befitting for a King.

This seemed plausible … until the recent Chinese invasion of Cleveland. While New York and the Madison Square Garden might have been the grandest of stages before, that has been surpassed today with the possibility of playing on aged Chinese TV sets across China’s provinces becoming a far more appealing prospect – particularly for an athlete that’s primary goal (besides Championships) is to be the world’s first sports billionaire. As it looks now, with the Cavs built to contend for years, the Knicks on a hopeless path down mediocracy, and the “Chinalization” of the Cavaliers – it would be foolish for LeBron to go anywhere.

This is the story of how a troubled sporting city in the middle of the United States was first saved by a King and then by the Middle Kingdom. This story, has just begun.

“American Basketball Association (ABA) Joins in $200 Million Global Expansion.”

I must admit, I thought that the ABA had died in 1976 when it officially merged with the NBA. When I think of the ABA, I think of the blue/red/white ‘money’ ball (used today in the NBA three point contest), of Julius Erving, and of afros and tight shorts. So I had to check out what this league was all about and headed over to their official site, www.abalive.com. The long domain name didn’t do much to settle my suspicions and upon witnessing the website, which ironically looks like it was made in 1976, I started thinking I must be on an episode of Punk’d.

I then began reading the latest news from their news feed to try to catch up with this mysterious league that had just dawned upon me. One recent news headline stated that two NBA players would be going head to head on opening night: Isaiah “JR” Rider (NBA dunk champ) and Anthony “Pig” Miller (a nobody). Another news was announcing that Troy “Escalade” Jackson (of And1 fame) was named the assistant coach of the Florida Thundercats. Then there was the news that 9 ABA teams would be playing games in China. I wanted to see one of the teams so I decided to check out the team page of the “Los Angeles SLAM” . The website look dodgy with a logo that seemed to be stolen from Slam Magazine and site design stolen from a MySpace teenager high on Mountain Dew, but regardless….the famous rapper “The Game” was on the team!

It seemed that this league was making things happen and well worth the attention. Finally I saw a big headline that was the biggest piece of linkbait I had ever seen:

“Owning a professional sports team is fun and profitable experience. Contact us for more info!”

All I had to do was fill in a simple form and I could own a pro sports team and be the next Mark Cuban?!

That was all I could take, I had to head over to Wikipedia and find out what in the world this was all about. Turns out, I wasn’t in the middle of a dream, this league really existed and the rights of the ABA were bought back from the NBA around 1999. However the league had seen its fair share of incidents and seemed more disorganized than the kindergarden basketball leagues where I first started playing. Teams didn’t show up to road games, left in the middle of season, and only around 35% of the games were actually played in the 2007-2008 seasons. Having said that, I was still interested in this China team participating in the league – but upon reading further, it would have probably been better to leave the matter alone:

“Another team that only played home games was Beijing Aoshen Olympic. This team was kicked out of the Chinese Basketball League and played home games in Singapore. Beijing would pay $3000 and fly teams to Singapore for a 2-game homestand. Early teams complained on Our Sports Central that they were forced to stay in a hotel that doubled as a brothel. Joe Newman CEO forced Beijing to find a new hotel on hearing this news. Later teams stayed in a Holiday Inn.”

(On a side note, Beijing Aoshen were kicked out of the CBA due to refusing to surrender their star point guard to the junior national squad in 2004.The player in question was Sun Yue who recently won a championship ring with the Los Angeles Lakers).

This brings us back to today and this CNN story of this 200 million $ global expansion that has just been announced (to me at least). 200 million is not a small amount, it’s around the same as what minority stakeholders Disney and Bank of China among others paid to acquire 11% of the NBA China entity back in January 2008. Who would part with such a large sum and take on this massive challenge of epic proportions was the new question brewing inside my head. The answer to that is none other than Paul Monozca, a Singapore-based Filipino sportsman-businessman who also holds the following lofty titles: investment banker, sports philanthropist, international fiancier, global kingpin..ok so the last one I made up. It’s no one I had heard of before, but someone that should be on any basketball enthusiasts’ to-follow list from this day on if his aspirations are anything to go by:

The ABA Global expansion initiatives will include a player exchange program, participation in a China-based league, the ABA USA League itself, and the ABA’s World Basketball Cup in Atlanta in 2011. Mr. Monzoca’s vision is certainly optimistic:

“The ABA Global program is timely. When countries see their very own players and teams play with the benchmark that is American basketball, it gives basketball a whole new meaning. This is global basketball with national pride worldwide.”

The key allure of this league is that it caters to smaller cities which NBA teams can’t target to in the US, and allows foreign teams to play against top global competition on an international level. If the management, organization, and marketing falls into place, it will mark an interesting global league that hasn’t really ever seen the light of day in basketball. Their first summit which will take place in Las Vegas, Nevada will feature big names such as Dr. J and George Gervin and should get them much needed publicity.

I’m never one to discount crazy and wild ideas, and I won’t make an exception this time regardless of the negative press this league has received in the past with many looking at it as somewhat of a joke. Fact is that basketball is on its way to becoming the most popular sport in the world and there hasn’t ever been a proper global initiative to make it a global competition. The NBA has such a plan many years down the road and they surely have their reasons for taking their time. So until then, I can only extend my best wishes to the rebirth of the ABA and will surely be keeping an eye out on them. I have a feeling I won’t be the only one.

The financial crisis has no doubt severely affected most sports franchises, and alternate sources of income have become a major priority in the off-season.

China is the world’s largest basketball market, and still one that is relatively untapped. Chinese companies have a warm spot for western sports teams and brands in their marketing mix. The number 1 foreign import that Chinese people can associate with is sports, and so a link and connection with these popular western sports brands give a high level of prestige and respect to any local brand that is seen in association with them. Some companies even go to questionable extents  to secure these high profile brand image boosts.

Even the NBA itself has entered many partnerships with local businesses in recent months. These sponsorships have helped them grow their brand with basketball tournaments, cheerleading competitions, and reality TV shows. The NBA was instrumental in helping Mengniu, the popular Chinese Dairy brand, regain some status after the Melamine incident had dropped consumer confidence to an all time low.

Li Ning, China’s most succesful sports apparel company, also has benefited greatly from sports marketing. Nike and Adidas being its main competitors, Li Ning went out and used most of its marketing Reminbi in sponsorship deals to attact NBA stars: Shaquille O’Neal (for 1.6 million dollars), Baron Davis, Jose Calderon and Damon Jones, as well as the whole Spanish Basketball National Team.

But what about the Washington Wizards? In Gilbert Arenas, the Wizards have one of the most marketable players in the league. Chinese fans already know him through his many baskebtall exploits and being on many Adidas Brotherhood adverts. But especially in China where the average young NBA fan is also very in tune with  technology/gaming/blogging – Gilbert Arenas with his quirky and very open and honest personality could be a mega star. Give Arenas more exposure in China, and there is no doubt that he will thrive and become an icon. Agent Zero – who may have seemed like a liability to the Wizards organization back at the peak of his blogging days, could very well be their window of opportunity in the world’s largest basketball market. Chinese NBA fans don’t follow teams, they follow players..specifically superstars with interesting personalities.

For NBA teams wanting to do business in China the possibilities are there and in such a huge market there will always be opportunities. The important thing is to remember what interests and excites average Chinese people. Teams really need to think about why Kobe is so much bigger than LeBron here, why someone like Damon Jones was the first NBA player to get a major China sponsorship deal, why Shane Battier was the face of the Peak brand.

NBA teams and players also need to be ready to go beyond the traditional marketing strategies if they want a true following in China. A simple brand association is no longer good enough to make major headlines – visits to China, donations in times of disasters (like the Sichuan earthquake), participation in grassroot programs and camps, China oriented charities, and special attention to the Chinese people will be ultimately what sways China. This is already one of the main reasons why the NBA is so ahead of other foreign sports leagues – they came here and have invested in the country for years. When David Stern first came to China some decades ago, he practically paid China to air its NBA games on national television. This is in stark contrast to the English Premiership that today no longer has any matches on national TV due to the large amount of money they have requested.

The NBA gave and gave and gave, and now its time for the NBA and its partners to reap the benefits.

Last season, in an effort to strengthen the league and garner more attention around Asia and the rest of the world, the CBA made some major changes. Games were increased from a total of 200 to 450, the limit of foreign players allowed was increased from one to two, and a more competitive style of basketball was encouraged to ‘toughen up’ the Chinese players.

The results have not been effective and costs of running a team have spiraled out of control to the point where some owners can no longer afford their teams. Several days ago the Honghe Running Bulls announced that they were up for sale. Furthermore, under these new rules major brawls have broken out, injuries have increased significantly, and foreign players such as the mighty Bonzi Wells have been so dominant that only one Chinese player took place among the top 20 scorers in the league (former Dallas Maverick Zhang Yiyi at 18th place).

The board meeting to resolve these issues consisted of an agenda around 3 main topics. The first issue was a slight change in management whereby CBA Director Xin Lancheng replaced Li Yuanwei to become league tournament board member. The second issue revolved around new rule changes including discussions of cutting back on the amount of foreigners and shortening the length of the season. The final issue was around the admittance plan which would shut doors to new teams joining  by the year 2012, which particularly affects hopeful teams from China’s second rate league, the NBL.

The CBA’s expansion and growth plans unfortunately came at a bad time. Tough economic times has even hit the most successful basketball league in the world, the National Basketball Association in the United States. The NBA, which the CBA has long tried to emulate, has also received its fair share of warning signals in recent months. The 2008-2009 season witnessed many unexpected money saving trades and some team owners have even gone to unexpected lengths to secure their multi-million dollar investments.  The Charlotte Bobcats have been put up for sale and the Cavaliers have accepted foreign investment from China as part of a minor ownership. Their is serious talks that the 2010-2011 season could see a lockout and would be the only thing stopping the hemorrhaging of money that team owners are desperate to stop.

This all doesn’t bode well for NBA China, the NBA’s expansion project in China. The goal was to move out to a largely untapped market such as China to counter the impact of a saturated and no longer prosperous market back in the US. But it seems it will be a tougher than expected challenge to revitalize the Chinese Basketball Association. Looking at it from another angle, this could very well be the window of opportunity for NBA China to really step up their plans. With the CBA in such trouble and the genuine possibility of a lockout back at home – this gives the NBA a real opportunity to put in the ground work for a future league in China. The CBA obviously needs the NBA’s help to get anywhere, and the NBA now has more incentive than ever to capitalize on their plan. Cooperation from Chinese authorities and Chinese basketball stakeholders would be at an all time high to partner up more cLose Weight Exercise/”>Lose Weight Exercisely with the NBA.

Currently however, China’s basketball talent is nowhere cLose Weight Exercise/”>Lose Weight Exercise to ready for a full fledged NBA level league – and this is the main reason why the CBA suffers as it does today. More professional arenas, better cheerleaders, and a couple of foreign NBA players here and there – while being a big step in the right direction – won’t be enough to single-handedly turn the CBA on its head.  Competitive, skilled, and exciting Chinese players will truly be the main driving force behind any basketball league in China.

While the success of any basketball league in China is uncertain on a short-term outlook – it is still a no-brainer when we look at the long term. Barring a long lockout, the NBA’s next 5 years are already in the bank with assets such as Yao Ming, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, as well as several promising Chinese players such as Sun Yue and Yi Jianlian in the mix. Interest and growth of popularity in the sport will only increase.

Now, hopefully a proffesional Chinese basketball league manages to stay alive until the day of competitive Chinese basketball truely arrives.

When the NBA along with its partners announced the formation of the NBA China entity last year, not much was clear on the direction that this project would take.

Now well over a year after, the NBA’s strategy in China has taken a concrete form and its intentions are becoming clearer by the day. With the introduction of American style entertainment arenas, and American style reality shows encouraging American style cheerleading and streetball competitions – the NBA is simply copying the exact blueprint that made the league so successful on home soil and internationally.

This strategy makes sense – as part of the appeal of the NBA in China is this form of self expression and creativity that basketball makes possible. No other sport has as much flash, attitude, and style and therefore these attributes must stand at the forefront of what the NBA is marketing in China as well.

The only issue lies with China’s deeply rooted historical and cultural ties that it refuses to completely liberate. Yes McDonalds’ and Starbucks’ can now be seen at every street corner, but in values it holds very cLose Weight Exercise/”>Lose Weight Exercisely it is still holding on tight and preventing globalization from having too much influence.

One example is the quota set on foreign movies to be shown in cinemas, which is currently set at 20 per year. This is in dark contrast to the black market for DVD’s where foreign movies and television shows tend to dominate. It is this kind of free market and globalization related pressure that the Chinese authorities are increasingly having to deal with in their pursuit of retaining traditional cultures and fending off total Westernization or Americanization.

In Yu Keping’s book Democracy is a Good Thing, he highlights this dilemma that the Chinese government is facing:

“In the view of many Chinese, there is a real risk that globalization will lead to Westernization or even Americanization. The government has developed many strategies to prevent this. For instance, Chinese leaders do not wish to imitate a capitalist economic model, and they refuse to adopt Western political systems and core political values.”

 

China is no different from most Western countries in engaging in a broad set of debates and discussions about the advantages and disadvantages of globalization. Some believe that the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. Others, including many in the government, have come to believe that the advantages are potentially much more significant than the disadvantages.”

Perhaps it is this last sentence that explains the ability of NBA China to so openly spread and impose its Western culture onto the Chinese population. Much like the internet has known to break barriers that the government could no longer totally control -Globalization/Westernization/Americanization is similarly becoming a powerful force that China can no longer fight off.

But as we can see, China doesn’t need to fight globalization as they are one of the nations which has taken most advantage of it. If we look at the NBA in specific, the investment of the NBA in China and the experience it will bring will do wonders for China’s still underdeveloped entertainment industry. These 12 arenas that the NBA is building along with AEG should lead the way towards other forms of entertainment developing as well.

While the NBA may end up cannibalizing the CBA (Chinese Basketball Association), it is a cost that the Chinese authorities have seemingly been willing to accept for the greater good that will come of it. And lets face it, the CBA is not a league that is on path to serve the worlds largest basketball market. However, other important values to the Chinese such as Confucianist beliefs of dignity and humbleness are also under threat. Current Chinese players in the NBA still don’t show any signs of deterring from these principles, but China’s newer generations seem to be slowly swayed by the NBA’s in your face attitude, trashtalking and hip-hop culture.

In the end, Lose Weight Exercise/”>Lose Weight Exercise-weight-Lose Weight Exercise/”>Lose Weight Exercise: normal”>NBA China does represent an area where China is becoming Americanized if you will. However Americanization/Westernization of sports isn’t necessarily a betrayal of its roots. Sports is a global concept that no country owns to itself. Development and modernization of sports, whatever name they might fall under, is something that even the most protectionist of countries should and do follow.

Chinese Basketball players aren’t really a heavy talking point in the NBA these days, but they should be. Somewhere down the line, the NBA is hoping to create an NBA branded league in China. Basketball has already become the most popular sport among young Chinese male, so analysts predict that with such huge interest, the country will be able to develop good enough players to stand toe to toe against international competition. 

However as we all know, out of the 300 million or so basketball fans that the country is presumed to have, only 5 China born basketball players have ever made it into the NBA. Perhaps if we look cLose Weight Exercise/”>Lose Weight Exerciser at these 5 Chinese NBA players in question, we can pick up clues on how and where the Chinese NBA players of the futures will come from:

Chinese Basketball Players Profile

The first thing that can be noticed is the average player size is above 7 foot long. This is understandable, in basketball height is always an advantage and finding skilled big men is one of the toughest problems facing teams each year. China’s average height is way below that of Western countries, yet with a population of 1.3 billion the country is able to rely on extremes rather than averages.

Looking at the birthplaces of the players in question reveals what we would expect:  players are naturally spread out among the east coast of China – known to be the most developed parts of China due to its proximity to ports and the large investments it has consequently received from local and foreign entities.

In this light, the Chinese government’s plans  to build  800,000 basketball courts – one in each of China’s 800,000 villages – could be a huge step forward for the development of basketball in China. If the East coast can produce a Yao Ming, why can’t the Western parts of China down the line?

Chinese Basketball Players Stats

Here we get down to the meat of it all. No player except for Yao or Yi was able to secure any meaningful playing time whilst in the NBA. Rebounding figures over a 48 minute period are decent, but steals and especially blocks are far from acceptable when the length of these players are considered. The Chinese Basketball Association recently has tried to make its league more tough, and hopefully this will lead the players to challenge more on the defensive end. All players averaged more turnovers than they did assists – not unheard of for big players, but still exposes an inherent flaw in their floor perspective. It could be the stress, it could be the NBA’s different rules and play styles – but ultimately it’s probably the lack of confidence that holds these players back the most.

Chinese Basketball Players Shooting

Not all things are bad for China’s hopes of developing NBA caliber players. If you look at the 3 point and free-throw percentages, you can see clearly one of the main strengths of Chinese basketball: shooting the basketball. 7 footers in the NBA are known to be poor freethrow shooters, and even worse from beyond the 3 point line – but in China this doesn’t really apply. Even the FG% are acceptable once you consider that most of the shots come from mid range jumpers instead of the usual dunks that players of those size heavily rely on. If you think about it, China is possibly developing the next generation of basketball players where size and shooting ability, can come tightly wrapped in one package. But that package still needs a couple of other elements to truely be viable yet alone competitive.

Reality

The reality of Chinese basketball on a global stage today can be summed up with the above numbers. Besides Yao Ming, who could  very well be a statistical anomaly even under China’s unexpected nature, there have only been 111 games started by Chinese players in the NBA. This shows that the days of the Shanghai Sharks challenging the Boston Celtics for a global NBA title are still in the distant future. But with the explosion of interest since 2002 (Yao’s draft year), the near million basketball courts being built across the country, a youth hungry and motivated to succeed, the NBA’s marketing stronghold in the country, and a population of 1.3 billion used to hardship to get anything in life  – I certainly wouldn’t bet against a future of Chinese basketball domination and Chinese NBA superstars.