Ill-fated ‘80s music duo? Fast-food lunch combo? Bachelor grocery list?
The answer is D) None of the above. Here are some notes about two bits of news that might be meaningful to you if you have both a mildly unhealthy appetite for basketball and a streak of Chi-curiosity. They are about two ballplayers whose careers will likely never come in direct contact, yet which are bizarre mirror images of each other.
T-Mac, of course, is Tracy McGrady, the former NBA scoring wizard who spent last season in what was, to some, a startingly unimpressive late-career stroll through a season with the Qingdao Eagles of the Chinese Basketball Association. Tang is T-Mac’s basketball opposite, a teenaged hoops prodigy from Jiangsu province who went to the United States for high school so that he could be a student and an athlete. Tang Zihao is called Chris Tang in the States, Chris for the point guard’s sporting hero, Chris Paul, and Tang as in the powdered sugary-orange drink, not as it’s pronounced back home in southeastern China.
“Surprisingly athletic” will be the phrase.
I’d read about young Mr. Tang in an excellent December feature by Jay Caspian Kang of Grantland. The 6’3” guard was mid-way through his junior year of high school at Oak Hill Academy in Virginia, after having dominated at another school in his first two high school seasons.
