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Better Read Than Never: Yardley’s BRAVE DRAGONS

Posted by :James Howden On : February 21, 2013
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Category: All About Sports

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Reviewed: Brave Dragons: A Chinese Basketball Team, an American Coach, and Two Cultures Clashing by Jim Yardley (Alfred A. Knopf, 2012, 304 pages)

[A slightly different version of this review also appears at www.Niubball.com, the best English-language look at all things basketball in China. It was published Feb. 22, just after T-Mac’s apparent farewell to China. Grown men cried in the airport as he left.]

I still remember that raised eyebrow, when I said, “It’s not really about basketball!” I was trying to convince my mother-in-law – potter, BBC-watcher, library ghost, someone for whom the Canadian Broadcasting Corp’s Radio 2 has gotten too damned poppy – to watch the superb documentary Hoop Dreams, a window into poverty, race, sport and education in America. This was a few years ago, and I was a new-enough son-in-law that she was still willing to give me the grudging benefit of her considerable doubt. She did finally watch it, and the review was fairly brief: “My dear, that most certainly was about basketball! But there were some interesting parts.”

So let me be clear. Brave Dragons by the American journalist Jim Yardley,

Jim Yardley, second-generation Pulitzer winner, hoops fan.

really is about the Shanxi (Taiyuan) Brave Dragons, their unpredictable owner (Boss) Wang Xingjiang, their 2008-09 season in the Chinese Basketball Association, and about Bob Weiss, the first former NBA bench boss to work in China, and the very mixed bag of players he had to work with. (I remember the chronically slump-shouldered Weiss, with a pained expression on his face, imploring referees or his Seattle Supersonics players to listen. Were I older, I’d remember him as a resilient, nothing-keeps-me-out-of-the-game player for the Chicago Bulls. Both of these qualities made him the perfect person to try to

Weiss, who came back for ANOTHER year (though not in Taiyuan).

coach in Taiyuan under Boss Wang.) It spotlights the babes-in-the-Chinese-woods that wide-eyed young Americans, imported for their superior skill, are in adjusting to hoops with Chinese characteristics. If you like basketball and find the idea (or the reality) of living in China fascinating, you’ll love Brave Dragons, but neither condition is necessary.

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Super Bowl Monday II

Posted by :James Howden On : February 8, 2013
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A guided tour of America…

This is PART TWO of my extended riff on watching Super Bowl XLVII. Please click HERE to read Part One.  

11:25 a.m., Dalian, China. Jimmy, get out of the bathroom! Jimmy! JIMMY! 109 yards in 11 clock seconds, according to The Heads, went Jacoby Jones with the 2nd half kickoff. In the pantheon forever. the unbreakable record. Rayvens 28, Forty-winkers 6. (Cheap shot. Sorry. Also, the return was recalibrated at 108 yards. So there’s room for improvement. Whew.)

Off to the races from the 2nd half kick-off, Jacoby Jones gallops.

11:30. The lights go down in the Superdome, and the Three Wise Men and I share a collective Uh-oh! Talk turns to jihadists and fear-mongering possibility and Black Sunday – the movie – and this is the way the world goes.

11:32. The realtor as hero: the Century 21 Man saves the wedding. (We are all heroes, insofar as we support the consumer economy.) Blah. I’m getting tired of this. The thrill is gone. But the Blackberry commercial got my attention: “In 30 seconds, it’s easier to show you what it can’t do.” Great song, easy-going, in the background. Jimmy thinks it was Pitbull. I don’t know what that means. (Matters not, as the song was “Who Knows” by Marion Black; the Wise Men and Me ain’t got no soul.) Oh, my goodness, and Air Force One has been de-tailed! People have been sucked out of a plane at high altitude and we are all to believe that they are still alive! (How can fact and science and logic match up to Marvel-at-the-Movies?) It’s Iron Man 3. Coming May 3, coming to save the POTUS and his high flyers and redeem our boredom. (I was quite surprised to have had a good time at Iron Man, before it needed a ‘1’ behind it: good acting, and snappy dialogue along with the CGI. I’m not sure there are enough new ideas, in the same way that the Star Trek reboot will suffer the inevitable sequel Scarecrow disease: no brain.)

11:33. Jim Nantz and Phil Simms, CBS’s voices of choice, can’t be heard because of the blackout. Sideline reporter Steve Tasker doesn’t know WHAT the hell to say. Thank goodness for commercials.

11:35. “It’s Febberary…Febuary…Febwuary.” Isn’t it funny how nobody can actually pronounce that month? A little, I guess. Out-takes are always fun. Subway’s is doing something in February that we should all be very excited about. (No mention, then, of restoring the lost inch to their alleged footlongs. Scandal.). Oh, and earlier, various stars (largely unrecognized by me) congratulated the famous Jared on the 15th anniversary of his sub-inspired weight loss. An iconic tale of modern America: man beats obesity and keeps it beat. Heroes are everywhere. (Jared did not look well to me, when I replayed the spot next day.)

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Super Bowl Monday

Posted by :James Howden On : February 8, 2013
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A guided tour of America via televisual sport.

Think of it as cultural introspection. Football for fun and insight. 

Don’t be afraid.

A Tale of Two Harbaughs, Two QBs, & Two Linebackers

9:01 a.m. Monday. This is when you watch Super Bowl XLVII if you’re in China and you live two bus stops from Jimmy D’s place, where this wild-eyed NFL evangelist subscribes to Game Pass. (The game started at 7:30 our time, but we’re not crazy.) While Mad Jim puts the final touches on his breakfast burritos, we wait for the alleged gang to arrive. (Brackets like this, in this tangled story, usually mean that I got thinking more about this stuff once the Super Bowl had settled a bit in my mind. It has taken a few days. There’s a lot to think about. Note: this post gets long. Sit back. Relax.)

9:11 a.m. Bad Jim just burst my bubble. This telecast is likely pre-cut. There’ll be no pre-game, but then I’ve had enough in my ill-spent past of talking heads and pre-game hype, and Grantland’s Bill Barnwell and crew have given me all I need of pre-apocalyptic analysis. (If you promise to come back, I will link you to this great sports and pop culture site. But no pride-of-America national-anthem-as-sacrament? No over-indulgent commercials, no insert-hyphenated-adjective-here  half-time show?!) I wanted the whole experience. I wanted to see what the brightest, most creative minds in the Excited States of America have made to mould and incite our consumer purpose. Bring it to me, TV!!

9:15. Burritos chewing, game on. I’ve read much more – he’s been an introverted flashpoint for pigskin opinionating – about the Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco than I’ve seen, which basically amounts to their AFC championship beating of the New England Bradys, and this opening series. He throws beautiful balls, so fluid, so confidently commanding. Baltimore is off and throwing. It doesn’t look like the constipated, conservative, No Fun League Super Bowls that I got tired of in the 90s and early 2000s. (Our little-brother Canadian Football League’s Grey Cup championship was routinely a better game than the Hyper Bowl. But enough of Canuck chauvinism.) But it’s going to be all football, which I’m adjusting to. I guess I can watch the commercials later if I really want to. Nearly $4 million to buy 30 seconds, I’ve read. What a world.

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Another Hit to the Head

Posted by :James Howden On : January 27, 2013
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McDonald’s is not a place I often go when I’m home in Canada, but in Dalian, it’s a bit of a treat. (All things are relative, my friends.) I began this post, which  begins as an adventure in middle-aged basketball and ends with a journey through Chinese health care, under the golden arches. Last Christmas, I gave you my heart / The very next day, you gave it away / This year, to save me from tears, / I’ll give it to someone special… (Wham!) The Mai dang lao Christmas collection, which I know shockingly well, is still going strong. “Jingle Bells”, a distressingly perky version, just ended. This is a place I sometimes come to avoid the distractions of home! I am the King of Distraction. Speaking of which, here’s the story I wanted to tell.

For the second straight day, I got a call to play some basketball. Normally, that’s not great for the ol’ body, but I hadn’t played very hard Tuesday night. When Yinghua, a former student and a pretty good player, invited me to join him yesterday afternoon, there was no NO there. Projects I was fitfully working at were shelved; even when I was perched at the keyboard, I found myself Mentally Preparing to Play as if this game actually meant something. The King, indeed, but even codgers need something to look forward to. What I hadn’t prepared for was getting decked twice, and staggering away with a pair of more or less serious boo-boos.

Another day, no boo-boos. AND I blocked this shot, I swear!

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Back To You, Mai Di: T-Mac II (Updated)

Posted by :James Howden On : January 22, 2013
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T-Mac, all smiles with Wang Hai, Eagles owner.

It’s time for an update on Tracy McGrady’s sometimes bizarre, steadily surprising adventures as a basketball nomad in Qingdao, a coastal city in China. When last I wrote of the former NBA scoring champion, his Double Star Eagles were on an epic losing streak to the start the season, which eventually reached 12 painful games. Things are looking better recently, though most of my main questions remain the same. I’m not one to sneer at an athlete on the way down, but his career in China so far makes an interesting story, and perhaps a sad one.

The Eagles look to extend a recent winning streak to six when they visit the second-place Shandong Flaming Bulls tonight, who are led by Pooh Jeter, Jackson Vroman and the Jordanian forward Zaid Abbas. (Any bells ringing? Jeter played at Portland — and his sister is the gold medal sprinter — and Vroman at Iowa State.) The game may even make CCTV 5. When I last reported back in December, McGrady (Mai Di, as he is called in this country) was about to break loose for 41 points, albeit in the last game of the big losing streak. Here’s how it has looked since then.

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Cousin Tracy and the Double Star: McGrady in China

Posted by :James Howden On : December 16, 2012
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T-Mac flies high in the Rocket days.

The I Love Tracy Show just came into my Saturday morning life, not-quite-live from Qingdao, China (that’s a city in Shandong province, just north of Shanghai). With an NBA game coming on at a routine-for-China 10:30 a.m., there was time for CCTV 5, my inscrutable Asian ESPN, to show a mercifully edited version of last night’s CBA game. The Qingdao Double Star Eagles were trying to keep their perfect record with the great T-Mac on board, and they did it! After losing to the Shandong Flaming Bulls — though apparently no animals were harmed in the naming of this team — they are now 0-9, and it wasn’t even that close a match. “Led” by the lethargic former NBA star – still an icon in China, having played much of his fluid prime in Houston alongside Yao Ming – the Eagles don’t guard much. Down 18 with under 5 minutes to play, they were in a flaccid zone, having been unable to contain a quick little American point guard named Pooh Jeter, and Jordanian forward Zaid Abbas (who pretty much had his way with Mr. McGrady). It was another day in the life of Americans trying to find a basketball refuge (and make a few million yuan, in this case) in the Middling Kingdom of pro basketball. 

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Old Guy Glory: Still Got It! (One day.)

Posted by :James Howden On : November 25, 2012
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“There is a greater hunger for appreciation than for bread,” said Mother Teresa, which may account for the burst of well-being that this middle-aged, decomposing terra-cotta warrior of the hardwood felt last week. Among the new things I learned: my university actually has a basketball team! They play against other universities! I’m a basketball hard case who’s lived in my northeastern Chinese city for over three years, and I hadn’t known this. I also got an email from Han Xinghua, who teaches German at my college – most foreigners call him “Hans”, surprise! – inviting me to join the staff basketball squad. (There’s a teacher team?) I discovered, too, the following Wednesday afternoon, that our university has a sports hall, with glass boards and seating and a pseudo-hardwood floor. Nice!

I launched an early three. Net! Cries of supply and acclaim!

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NBA Finals: It’s Morning in China

Posted by :James Howden On : June 16, 2012
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To paraphrase the late great media blowhard Howard Cosell – and listen, though he blew hard, he often blew well, but who calls anybody a “blowwell”? – I reject the notion that the NBA is a sacred cow which emits only the purest of good, wholesome milk. (Even when The Finals begin in Oklahoma.) I’m a basketball lover, a long-time coach, someone who still pumpfakes and dropsteps and stumbles around outdoor courts with college students. In China. (And no, I don’t often post guys up. 5’10 ¾” is bigger here than back home in Ontario, but I’m not usually the big man on campus courts and I don’t jump anymore.) I’ve loved (and often hated) the Association since well before Miami or Oklahoma City dreamed of having teams, when Dave Cowens was a floorburned 6’9” centre and Bob McAdoo, an early Kevin Durant prototype, floated jumpers for the Buffalo Braves. (Yeah, I bin around.)

Now, for three years, I’ve watched my NBA games in the mornings when I’m free.

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Old Scores: The Game is Never Over

Posted by :James Howden On : November 30, 2011
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Sorting myself out on a Monday morning here in Dalian, China, I was surprised to notice how December loomed. Good Canadian lad that I am, ancestral memories rang a High Holy Day alarm: wait, the 28th? That must mean the Grey Cup was yesterday! I hadn’t a clue, though, that my electronic clicks and misses would send me towards a septuagenarian brawl and some old, old questions.

I didn’t know who was in the Grey Cup, the Canadian Football League’s championship game, though I’d read in the Globe and Mail on-line that my (nearly) hometown Hamilton Tiger-Cats had won a playoff game. Since we’re 13 hours ahead of EST, I was able to follow the blurts and textual mutterings of various G&M Sports Guys in the press box as the B.C. Lions clawed the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

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Boxing and the Meaning of a Life

Posted by :James Howden On : October 31, 2011
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This is a stale-dated story by now, but it’s a good one. (And what do you care about being chronologically cutting-edge? You wouldn’t be here if you craved punctuality or pragmatism.) I I saw a headline, while sport-snorting  in mid-October, something about a 52-year-old guy making his pro boxing debut. I harrumphed and muttered about the latest athletic idiocy and hit Next. The headliner on that card was 46, for crying out loud! Grumble grumble.

I’m no boxing fan, though my limited exposures to the so-called “mixed martial arts” craze have made me a little sad about boxing losing to that sordid circus, and I have irritated sons and nephews with what they consider boxing chauvinism. I revered Muhammad Ali as a kid, and stubbornly and patriotically paid attention to George Chuvalo’s implacable shuffling and incredible chin. I was jazzed by Rocky I.

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