Thunder booms all the way to China
When Clay Bennett was first making his pitch for the NBA in Oklahoma City, not to the league but to the city itself, he talked a lot about the global reach of the NBA, how being in the league would raise OKC’s profile.
And you can hear commissioner David Stern talk a lot about the global influence of his league.
But you had to be skeptical about how much that related to Oklahoma City. New York? OK. Chicago? Sure. Houston, with Yao Ming? No doubt. The Lakers or Warriors or even Seattle, when the Sonics were there? I’ll buy it all on the Pacific Rim.
And there is probably a decent number of Europeans who follow the Thunder to some degree. Thabo Sefolosha is Switzerland’s greatest player ever. Nenad Krstic is Serbian. Robert Swift has universal appeal to a certain segment of young people.
But worldwide reach, which frankly in this age means China? Why would anyone in China care about the Thunder, except for the three or four nights a year the Boomers play the Houston Rockets?
I don’t know. But they do. I received this email Monday from a chap named Xiaoyu Lu. The ssubject line read: “Read this and give me some feedback.”
The email went like this: “Hi, Berry. I’m a thunder fan from China, we have a basketball BBS here which site is at www.hoopchina.com, and I’m proud to be the moderator of the Thunder area. We’ve been following your blogs, articles, news to get the up-to-date information about OKC thunder the whole season. We also pick up some good articles and translate into Chinese so more Chinese thunder fans can get informed.
“As the season has come to an end, I want to write a piece of article about this season and to have an outlook of the upcoming one. I think I need to hear your opinions, and I will translate them into Chinese so our fans can see the exclusive article. Hope you can spare some time to answer those questions for us:
1. How do you evaluate the team’s performance this season? With the full mark at 10, how much will you credit for the thunder?
2. What do you think will be the major tasks in the free agent market this summer for Sam Presti?
3. Who are your favorite picks at the draft for thunder and who do you think will be the final decisions? Reasons?
4. What do you think about Russell Westbrook? Some think he is not the right one to play at the point, should become a sixth man to bring some energy off the bench.
5. What do you think about next season? Will the thunder become a playoff runner?
“OK, I appreciate your cooperation, and I promise I will have your replies translated and post up at the BBS, then I give you a feedback. Thank you.”
I went to the guy’s website, and sure enough, it’s legit. I have no idea what any of it says, since it’s all in Chinese, but it looks like a full, vibrant site. It had all kinds of photos and stories that you could click on, including pictures of the Bulls-Celtics thriller, Ron Artest (a teammate of Yao), Phil Jackson, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Yao, a bunch of Chinese players not in the NBA and a bunch of cheerleaders on both sides of the Pacific, some of which could be Thunder girls, for all I know. I didn’t spend a lot of time studying their roster.
I have no idea the benefit to Oklahoma City of being plastered all over www.hoopchina.com, but no way it can be a bad thing for the Thunder to be talked about in China. Turns out the NBA, even in the outposts like OKC, does indeed have very long arms.
By the way, I answered the guy’s questions. I’ll share them with you Thursday morning on the blog.
Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel.
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Berry, quit calling them the Boomers! They are the Thunder!