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Opinion | NBA not only ones looking for next Yao Ming as other sports still hope to cash in on China
- Bayern Munich chief’s reaffirmation of club’s desire for a Chinese player shows that priorities have not changed in China market
- Houston Rockets hall-of-famer remains the ideal across all sport – and that model has expanded to India approach
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Why you can trust SCMP
The “Chinese dream” is an idea that has come to embody Xi Jinping’s time at the helm. Essentially, “the American dream with Chinese characteristics”, it has been synonymous with the expansion of the country’s middle class over the last decade.
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Social transformation and economic progress has been the hallmark of the last few decades of China and it is no coincidence that the dispersal of disposable income has seen the rapid rise of interest from Western sports leagues and their individual teams.
They all have a rather different “Chinese dream” – to get a star player from China into their team. Call it the “Yao Ming effect”.
The NBA got a jump on their rivals with the arrival of the big man in the 2002 draft but they have not managed to replicate it since. Yi Jianlian, Sun Yue and Zhou Qi followed, while Ding Yanyuhang and Guo Ailun tried and failed to make the draft.
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Even if you allow Sun “winning” a championship with the Los Angeles Lakers, there has been nothing like the sustained success of Yao’s eight seasons with the Houston Rockets since he hung up his size 18s.
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