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playa2
Posts: 34922 Alba Posts: 15 Joined: 5/15/2003 Member: #407 |
6/25/2007 12:32 PM
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/25/sports/basketball/25nba.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1182788952-yDWLS5dHhEsW9Qe5IwJRxA
The Bucks’ general manager, Larry Harris, said Friday that his team was considering taking Yi with the sixth pick despite potential objections from Chinese basketball officials. They want Yi to play in a city with a large Chinese population and for him not to languish on the bench. Hai To Chan, the owner of the Guangdong Tigers, arrived in Los Angeles last week to oversee the draft. “We are happy to see our players to go out,” said Li Yuanwei, executive vice president and secretary general of the Chinese Basketball Association. “We don’t oppose it. The question though, is how to keep it in an orderly way. We don’t want our men to just sit there without access to opportunities of training and gaming.” For the N.B.A., the success of players like Yi is critical to the international growth of the game. The N.B.A. estimates 300 million people play organized basketball in China. With 1.3 billion people and a growing middle class, N.B.A. Commissioner David Stern wants to capitalize. He said that the N.B.A. was discussing forming a league with the Chinese Basketball Association after the Beijing Olympics. “It was time for us to be making a greater investment in China,” Stern said last week. “It was time to take advantage of the opportunities — from marketing, to new media, to retail, to merchandise, to television.”
JAMES DOLAN on Isiah : He's a good friend of mine and of the organization and I will continue to solicit his views. He will always have strong ties to me and the team.
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