Basketball in China -- Part 3

In Part 1 of Basketball in China, I touched on the booming culture of basketball in China. In Part 2, I discussed the CBA and the foreign players who have made the leap over the Pacific Ocean. Today I will write a little about the lifestyle that some of the foreign players live while playing professionally in China.

As I mentioned in Part 2, I was fortunate enough to get Rodney White's phone number after another one of his fantastic games (he averaged around 30-10-5). We agreed that we would meet at a popular expat bar called 7 Club at midnight for a few drinks. Midnight rolled around, and next thing I know there was a massive, 6'9 former NBA lottery pick sitting next to me buying me drinks. After my fourth gin and tonic, I became frank with him:

Me: Rodney, be honest, who fucks the most bitches in the NBA?

Rodney: I do.

Me: No Rodney, really...

Rodney: Ned, I do. I fuck the most bitches.

Through talking with him, I got the distinct feeling that Rodney thinks his pro career should have been different. Besides his mediocre play, one of the main reasons Rodney plays overseas is because of his arrest. As a 24 year old free agent, he was caught driving through D.C. randomly shooting a gun out of his sunroof with friends. An undercover Secret Service Agent witnessed it and arrested him. When I told him players like Hedo Turkoglu and Anderson Varajao were awarded with $50 million contracts, he nodded his head in disappointment and sighed. When I told him Gilbert Arenas was in trouble for bringing guns into the locker room in D.C. and the remaining $80 million on his contract was in jeopardy, he became visibly upset and almost left the bar. In retrospect, he probably should have stayed in a school for another year to mature. But, at 19 years old and with no money, how could you justify turning down a guaranteed $8 mil as a lottery pick?

Although it's nothing compared to paydays in the NBA, foreign players are well compensated in China. According to the WSJ, max salaries are $60,000 a month. However, Rodney told me that the team paid his American and Chinese taxes. Furthermore, a lot of players are sponsored by Chinese brands. Rodney was sponsored by Anta, and he was disappointed to discover that I was sporting Shane Battier's PEAK brand. $60,000 a month is a ton of money in Chinese standards. It's my understanding that in Hangzhou, China, the average salary for a Chinese worker was $250 a month. Needless to say, Rodney, P.J. Ramos and other foreign players in China aren't pressed for money. This is why when we went to the clubs, Rodney and P.J. paid for everything. On Friday nights after victories we would go to a club called Coco and get a table with bottles of hard alcohol, beer, and fruit platters. I truly felt like I was living it up like an NBA star (maybe not quite like LeBron), except that girls weren't exactly flocking to us.

By American standards, Rodney and P.J. (7'4) are tall. By Chinese standards, they are physical freaks. At 6'1, strangers often came up to me to admire my size. At 7'4, P.J. stuck out like a sore thumb. P.J. and Rodney both came to our expat Thanksgiving feast. My British friend Lizzie, who is only 5'3, walked up to P.J. and said, "What the fuck?", and walked away. At the clubs, P.J.'s height hindered his ability to talk to girls. Chinese girls are really short and had never seen such a large human being. Thus, he stayed seated to feign an average height and asked me to find girls for him to talk to. I felt extraordinarily proud when I found a girl with whom he hit it off with. When I left the club, she was caressing his six-pack abs while dancing.

Although they may not appreciate it like I would, the foreign players in China travel throughout the majority of the country and see aspects of it that Chinese people don't get to see. Cities like Tiayuan (where Marbury plays) and Fuzhou are smoggy and aesthetically unpleasing, but do offer a glimpse into the fascinating factory life of China, which is what is driving China's economy.

Being a pro basketball player overseas is a fantastic way to see the World while getting paid. Rodney has played in Puerto Rico, Spain, Israel, Italy, and China. While some may poke fun at American players who aren't able to make the NBA and are forced to play overseas, it's hard not to respect them for stepping out of their comfort zone in order to do what they love. This is why appreciate players like Trajan Langdon, Josh Childress(above), Stephon Marbury, Paul Pierce (has said he wants to play in Europe), and Nick Calathes. While it is incredibly difficult to live so far from friends and family, the upside is that these players are getting paid to explore foreign countries and cultures, which is a once in a lifetime opportunity. More importantly, they are globalizing the game of basketball.