- 2 days ago
Before Yao Ming made it to the NBA, another player created the pipeline. It took secrecy, betrayal, and a lot of waiting, but Wang Zhizhi's path to becoming the league's first Chinese player laid the groundwork for everything that followed.
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00:00There could have been a North Korean NBA player.
00:03In 1996, at an international basketball tournament in Taiwan, NBA-connected people noticed someone
00:11on the North Korean team.
00:13Ri Myung-hun could shoot.
00:15He was still more or less in his prime.
00:17Oh, and sorry, I forgot.
00:19Ri Myung-hun is 7'9".
00:23Now, releasing someone from Kim Jong-il's notoriously insular dictatorship was unheard of.
00:30But so is a 7'9 guy, so officials from the tournament-winning Canadian team worked at
00:35it.
00:36Thanks to their efforts, and to the supreme leader's love of the NBA, Ri was given permission
00:42to leave North Korea.
00:44In 1997, he traveled to Ottawa to train for an NBA tryout.
00:49But the U.S. State Department stifled Ri's dream.
00:53By the time they reconsidered, he had gone home.
00:57Americans didn't hear about Ri Myung-hun again until 2011, when an extremely tall figure
01:03was spotted at Kim Jong-il's funeral.
01:05It was probably Ri, probably not a 9-foot super soldier.
01:09It would have been wild for an NBA player to come from as closed-off a country as North
01:14Korea.
01:14But it is wilder, I think, that Ri Myung-hun would have been the NBA's first player from
01:21anywhere in Asia.
01:29Welcome back to the Draft Cavern.
01:32Here is the name and nationality of every player ever selected in every NBA draft.
01:39Please read the waiver for all the caveats to the previous sentence, and now let's talk.
01:45So, Ri Myung-hun was not drafted.
01:47Technically, he went undrafted the year he turned 22, 1989.
01:51NBA scouts hadn't discovered him yet.
01:53The draft is supposed to be a scouting watershed.
01:57Teams cash in on the work they've done, identifying the world's best non-NBA players.
02:02But for decades, the world was really just America.
02:08Only colleges recruited abroad, and only foreigners who attended college got the NBA's attention.
02:14That changed in the 1970s and 80s.
02:16NBA teams began to scout, draft, and eventually sign prospects who had never played in the U.S.
02:23before.
02:24Donnie Nelson and the Golden State Warriors made a breakthrough when they signed Lithuanian-born
02:29Sarunis Martialonis out from under the Soviet Union.
02:32A decade later, Donnie Nelson pushed the Dallas Mavericks to draft Germany's Dirk Nowitzki.
02:38Nowitzki became one of several superstars who proved that players trained abroad could dominate in the NBA.
02:45European leagues became just as important a pipeline to the NBA draft as the NCAA ever was.
02:52It's all cool, but it's still just a fraction of our great hooping planet.
02:56We are headed to China, but before we get there, I said Ri Myung-hun would have been the NBA's
03:03first player from anywhere in Asia.
03:05That is true, but shout out to the Asian-Americans.
03:09Wat Masaka, a son of Japanese immigrants.
03:12Raymond Townsend, Filipino-American.
03:15Rex Walters, Japanese-American.
03:17And shout out to Yasutaka Okoyama.
03:20The 7'8 center from Japan could not play because of gigantism, but he still got drafted.
03:24And shout out to Tom Masheri, whose Russian parents gave birth to him in a Chinese refugee camp during their
03:32very difficult journey to the U.S.
03:34Masheri is Russian-American, but his is the only Chinese flag for decades.
03:40That's noteworthy because China's got over a billion people, many of whom have been practicing basketball basically since the sport
03:48was invented.
03:49Long before the Chinese Basketball Association started, the nation was dotted with provincial, organized basketball programs surrounding one barnstorming monolith,
04:01Ba'i, the team of the Chinese army.
04:04China's system was capable of generating NBA-caliber players, but for most of the NBA's first half-century or so,
04:12revolution and international politics overwhelmed basketball.
04:17Not unlike the Soviet Union, China had elite talent, but no pathway to Earth's elite basketball league.
04:24The U.S. and China formally repaired relations in 1979.
04:29That summer, the NBA champion Washington Bullets visited Beijing for a friendly exhibition,
04:34verse Ba'i, and got a look at what Americans had been missing.
04:38Here is NBA legend Wes Unselt, an undersized center, but still a sturdy 6'7",
04:44and this fella is passing over his head like he's not even there.
04:48That is Mu Tieju, a 7'6 center who owned the paint.
04:54Look at this shit.
04:55Mu was already 30 and wearing down, but NBA teams absolutely would have pursued him earlier in the decade if
05:01they had been scouting China.
05:03As it was, Washington started sniffing around the younger Ba'i players,
05:07but found that the People's Liberation Army was not inclined to, you know, liberate its people.
05:14Not for the NBA.
05:15But American teams wouldn't be deterred for long, not only because of Chinese talent, but because of Chinese fans.
05:22By the 1990s, CCTV carried NBA games.
05:26Nike brought players to visit.
05:28China was a burgeoning market for the league.
05:30The first NBA team to roster a Chinese player could please their local Chinese population
05:37and attract a billion or so fans across the globe.
05:42Ma Jian felt that.
05:44Ma made the rare, controversial decision to leave China and play college ball in the U.S., finishing at Utah
05:52in 1993.
05:53Ma went undrafted and never made an NBA roster, but even as a preseason benchwarmer for the Clippers in 1995,
06:01he detected the hype.
06:02Back then, their home court in the USC sports arena in the downtown area, one time we played preseason, 8
06:10,000 Chinese fans come to the gym.
06:11The first Chinese draft pick was Song Tao in 1987.
06:16Song seemed willing to accept an offer from the Atlanta Hawks, but then he wrecked his knee days after the
06:22draft.
06:23Similar story for undrafted Hu Weidong, who got close to signing with the 98 Orlando Magic before breaking his leg.
06:31This 1997 Vancouver Sun column mentions those names and drops a new one for the era.
06:40Wang Zhezhi, 7'1", 18 years old, already a Chinese Olympic star.
06:47Over here, you'll see a Vancouver Grizzlies executive imagining what a draw someone like Wang would be in Vancouver,
06:54a city with one of the highest concentrations of Chinese people outside China itself.
07:00Well, on that front, the Grizzlies learned a secret about Wang Zhezhi.
07:05You see this?
07:06Not true.
07:09In 1977, two of Beijing's best and tallest basketball players had a big baby, Wang Zhezhi.
07:17Though Wang grew very tall, he was quick and dexterous, with a smooth left-handed jumper from any range.
07:24By birthright, Wang was a prized prospect for Beijing's basketball program.
07:30His parents, though, had a thorny relationship with their longtime employer,
07:34and in 1991, Baiyi, the Army team, managed to sign the teenager away from Beijing.
07:41As a ploy to preserve his eligibility for junior competitions,
07:46Baiyi changed Wang's official birth date from July 9, 1977, to 1979.
07:52They did that sometimes.
07:55When the Chinese Basketball Association got up and running,
07:59Wang helped the Baiyi Rockets go undefeated all the way to the inaugural CBA title.
08:04That was April 1996.
08:07Wang was 18, but on paper, he was 16.
08:10At that summer's Atlanta Olympics,
08:13the United States men's team thought their Chinese opponents had a 7-foot lefty who shot threes
08:18and who had just turned 17.
08:21That's intriguing.
08:23But I will propose that Baiyi's clerical lie was not airtight.
08:28Here's Wang showing his range during a pre-Olympic exhibition.
08:31Listen closely to Hubie Brown.
08:33You're going to see the defense recover,
08:35and then the kick back out,
08:37and the big fella at 19 years of age, just turned 19 two days ago.
08:41Hubie said his real age.
08:43And the news reports were all over the place.
08:46Here is an article in which Wang, who's not as good as David Robinson yet, is said to be 19.
08:52But then this one emphasizes his official incorrect age, and also says Atlante.
08:59Here is a third in-between age, somehow.
09:03This is silly now, but it was important at the time,
09:06because Wang was earning attention outside China.
09:09Colleges wanted him, but they got the accurate impression that Wang would not defect,
09:14especially given the political climate.
09:16So NBA teams concluded that Wang would also not become an early entrant to their draft.
09:22If they wanted him, they would have to wait for 2001,
09:25when he would turn 22 and become automatically draft eligible.
09:30They thought.
09:31NBA teams seemed to have latched on to that official false age.
09:35But a select few confirmed the truth.
09:39Wang told his handler at Nike, who told agent Bill Duffy, who told the Vancouver Grizzlies.
09:45Psst.
09:46This kid was actually born in 77, meaning the NBA can't stop you from drafting him in 1999.
09:53Vancouver, which was flailing financially and desperate for a post-lockout jolt, hatched a plan.
10:00Draft first, negotiate later, then quite possibly bring the NBA's first Chinese player to one of the NBA's most Chinese
10:09cities.
10:10It would be a huge surprise and a marketing coup.
10:14Vancouver held the second pick in that draft.
10:16It's a story for another time, but no reason to burn that one on a player no one else knew
10:20was eligible.
10:21Wang made more sense with their next pick, 37th overall.
10:25So here we go.
10:2631, 32, 33, 34, 35.
10:32Grizzlies on the clock soon.
10:33One more and it will be Vancouver's turn to...
10:40Donnie Nelson knew about Wang Zhezhe before the Vancouver Grizzlies even existed.
10:46Through his friend Sarunas Marchilonas, Donnie built a lifelong connection to Lithuania.
10:51Whether it was to raise money or to coach Lithuania's reborn post-Soviet basketball federation, Donnie traveled extensively, spotting overseas
11:01talent all the while.
11:02In 1993, at a junior tournament in St. Petersburg, Nelson noticed a gangly, supposedly 14-year-old Chinese center with
11:11guard-like skills.
11:13Five years later, Donnie started working with his dad's Dallas Mavericks.
11:17Right after Donnie pushed Dallas to draft Dirk Nowitzki, he spent the NBA lockout ingratiating himself with the Chinese national
11:25team, even visiting Beijing.
11:27And around that time, Wang's guy at Nike went rogue.
11:31He undercut his bosses, Bill Duffy and the Vancouver Grizzlies, to furnish Donnie Nelson with not only the truth about
11:39Wang's age, but exclusive proof thereof, Wang's original military ID card.
11:45Donnie handled the rest.
11:48Conveniently and heartbreakingly for Vancouver, Dallas held the 36th pick in 99.
11:54Now, well, Dallas had valid draft rights to a talented Chinese player.
12:00Actually, getting him would mean negotiating with the People's Liberation Army of China.
12:05If you were being overdramatic about it, you might call this a mission.
12:10Did someone say mission?
12:15Ross Perot was the businessman-turned-billionaire-turned-financier of bizarre quasi-military extraction missions-turned-wacko-presidential candidate.
12:25Ross Perot Jr. is his dipshit son, who also owned the Dallas Mavericks.
12:31In 1982, fresh out of college, Perot Jr. found out an Australian was going to circumnavigate the globe in a
12:38helicopter and said,
12:40Hey, no fair, I want to do that. Daddy, can I have a helicopter?
12:45And, yeah.
12:47No, he didn't literally fly around the world in one shot.
12:51They landed multiple times.
12:53Yes, planes exist.
12:55No, I don't get it either.
12:56Anyway, after a stint in the Air Force, Perot Jr. got back to the important job of leveraging daddy's wealth
13:03to build a portfolio.
13:04In 1996, he bought the Dallas Mavericks as a real estate play.
13:09And in 1999, extracting a Chinese Army lieutenant on behalf of his basketball team seemed like a sweet adventure.
13:18Ross even called up his dad's old operative to come with.
13:21Those guys and the Nelsons went to Beijing, shook hands, told everyone how great it would be if Wang Shisha
13:28came to Dallas,
13:29and then Perot flew home and left the Nelsons to do the hard part of, you know, talking to the
13:34actual Army.
13:35They got rejected.
13:37The Mavs played the 99-2000 season without long.
13:40The NBA entered the 21st century without a single Asian-born player in its history.
13:47Ross Perot Jr. sold the Mavs to some other guy.
13:51Meanwhile, intention on China shifted.
13:54See, in 1980, two of Shanghai's best and tallest basketball players had a big baby of their own.
14:02Yao Ming grew much taller than Wang.
14:05As a star for the Shanghai Sharks, Yao was rapidly catching up to Wang in terms of skill.
14:10And now everyone knew he was three years younger than Wang.
14:14Yao was at least mulling the possibility of entering the NBA draft before he became automatically eligible in 2002.
14:22So Bailly resolved to not get beaten to the punch.
14:26In early 2001, the Army relented.
14:29Kind of.
14:30Wang Zhezhu would be released to sign with the Mavericks after his CBA season concluded and provided he returned to
14:38China ASAP.
14:39The Bailly Rockets finished the 0-1 regular season tied with Shanghai atop the standings.
14:45The Rockets and Sharks met in a much-anticipated CBA finals.
14:49Yao outplayed Wang early in the series and Shanghai even took a game.
14:54Bailly's first-ever CBA playoff loss.
14:56But, in the end, the elder and now less-hyped NBA prospect held strong.
15:03Wang dropped a triumphant 40-piece to lead Bailly to a decisive Game 4 win, personally stifling a late Shanghai
15:10comeback.
15:11That was March 22nd.
15:14On March 29th, Donnie returned to Beijing to plop a cowboy hat on Wang's head, drape a Mavs jersey over
15:21Wang's sweater, and make it official with the Army.
15:24By April 4th, Wang was in Dallas practicing.
15:28He was active for their next game, April 5th.
15:31Wang's Dallas teammates had just returned from a road trip, during which they clinched their first playoff berth in over
15:37a decade.
15:38Dirk and Steve Nash were on the cusp of stardom.
15:42So that Thursday night at home against the Hawks felt like a celebration.
15:46The Mavs were back.
15:47Wang just happened to be there, making history from the bench.
15:51He didn't expect to play, but he popped up when he thought Coach Don Nelson called his name.
15:56Nope, he had said Juwan.
15:58But, nearing halftime, Dallas was already up 20.
16:02Coach Nelson saw the opportunity to advance history a smidge further, and he put Wang in the game.
16:08The crowd went nuts.
16:10Wang cuffed up the ball, and the half ended.
16:13History made.
16:14That could have been it, except the Mavs protected their lead.
16:17Midway through the fourth quarter, garbage time commenced.
16:20Off came the warm-ups, and in came Wang to replace Dirk Nowitzki.
16:24Over the next few minutes, Wang recorded one historic first after another.
16:29First rebound for a Chinese NBA player.
16:32First field goal, a crisp straight-on jumper.
16:36First free throws, pure.
16:37But this, to Wang's surprise, was the moment.
16:42Up 18, with five minutes left, Wang set a pick for Nash and popped to the baseline.
16:48Before we proceed, remember where Wang Zhezhe had just come from.
16:53Days prior, Wang played the game of his life to stave off dethronement at the hands of a blooming personal
17:01rival,
17:01win his sixth straight title, and secure his release from the Chinese army.
17:06Now, here he was in Texas, still jet-lagged, attempting a low-stakes shot in a low-stakes game with
17:1418,000 people ready to explode.
17:17The crowd had been responding to everything he did.
17:20They understood the history.
17:21But the anticipation here was something else.
17:24And the reaction when the ball switched through, look at this guy, was on another level.
17:29How could so meaningless a play cause such a stir?
17:32Well, Wang's shot gave Dallas 101 points.
17:37In 2001, when the Mavs scored over 100 at home, everyone in the crowd got a Taco Bell coupon.
17:44Months earlier, this had caused a legit fracas.
17:48Wang Zhezhe hit the sacred chalupa shot.
17:51He was royalty.
17:54Welcome to America.
17:55This is the headline in most syndicated papers the next day.
18:01Wang Zhezhe's NBA career lasted a few years and a few teams.
18:05His sojourn in the U.S. muddied his relationship with the Chinese national team,
18:09but he returned to play more excellent basketball with the Bayou Rockets in 2001,
18:14and then again for the tail end of his career.
18:18Munk Batur followed Wang to the NBA.
18:21Yao Ming arrived in 2002 and, as promised, became China's first NBA superstar.
18:27However belatedly, and amid however much complexity,
18:31Donnie and Wang laid a pipeline between China and the NBA.
18:35China's pro league became so strong in its own right that the flow sometimes reverses.
18:40In this 21st century, more and more NBA teams proved willing to draft from more and more far-off places.
18:50Sometimes, it cost them.
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