The NBA in China (and other stuff ... )

Shanghaiist was going to post on news relating to the two million people in southwestern China without drinking water or Orville Schell’s review of John Pomfret’s new book, which asks ponderous questions relating to the ”basic blockage at the moral heart of China’s spectacular rise”. But we thought we’d concentrate on something different and more important today -- the possibility, remote yes, but a possibility nonetheless -- that the NBA could host regular season games in China. NBA Commissioner David Stern was in Guangzhou on Sunday and let everyone know how important the China market is to the NBA; and while he's no doubt right about that, we wonder how, logistically, they are going to have regular season games in China. Will it be the first games of the season? Or the last few games?

One report we read said that tickets for tonight's China-USA game are going for as much as 3800 RMB. Hopefully if they have regular season games they will make it affordable for the (upper middle-class) masses.

Anyway, more immediately, it’s still unclear if Yao Ming will play tonight. Without him in the Chinese line up, and with LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and Carmelo Anthony on the same team, we're going to have to, traitorous as it may seem, place our bets on team USA.

Photo from Soctech's Flickr page.