Brave Dragons : A Chinese Basketball Team, an American Coach, and Two Cultures Clashing

by Yardley, Jim

• ISBN13: 9780307272218
• ISBN10: 0307272214
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-02-14
• Publisher: Knopf

Summary

From the former New York TimesBeijing bureau chief, a closely observed story of a struggling Chinese basketball team and its quixotic, often comical attempt to make the playoffs by copying the American stars of the NBA--a season of cultural misunderstanding that would transcend sports and reveal China's ambivalent relationship with the West. When the worst professional basketball team in China, the Shanxi Brave Dragons, hired former NBA coach Bob Weiss to improve its fortunes, the team's owner, Boss Wang, promised that Weiss would be allowed to Americanize his players by teaching them "advanced basketball culture." That promise would be broken from the moment Weiss landed in China. Desperate for his team to play like Americans, Wang--a peasant turned steel tycoon--nevertheless refused to allow his players any freedom and individuality. As we follow this team of colorful oddballs on a fascinating road trip through modern China, we see Weiss learn firsthand what so many other foreigners in China have discovered: that changing China happens only when and how China wants to be changed.