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China Basketball Team: Beyond the Gold
The Chinese men's basketball team played their last warm-up game before the Sydney Olympics and came in fifth place at the FIBA Diamond Ball tournament in Hong Kong September 6. The Chinese team only beat the Angolan team, who fielded a much shorter team than the Chinese team, by a narrow margin of 69-61.
After watching the Chinese team play, the secretary-general of the International Basketball Federation (IBF), said frankly that the Chinese, Angolan, and New Zealand teams don't have a chance to place in the top eight at the Olympics.
Upon hearing this, Jiang Xingquan, head coach of the Chinese team, said that whether the Chinese team can place in the top eight should be decided after the Olympic Games.
The Chinese men's basketball team has no hope of winning a medal in the Olympics. The Chinese team's goal is to place at least eighth, which is where they ended up in the last Olympics.
The Sydney Olympic is the fifth consecutive Olympics that China has attended. China has gone from winning no golds to more than ten golds. But, if the basketball team came in fourth or even sixth, it would have an enormous influence on China's youths who love the game. There are more than 400 million kids in China. There are at least 200 million Chinese who either play and/or watch basketball. The Chinese Professional Basketball League Draft was started up only five years ago. China youngsters, who feverishly follow the NBA want their own Michael Jordan or Shaquille O'neal.
No one dreams that the Chinese team will beat the American Dream Team in the first men's basketball game of the Sydney Games September 17. But no one hopes that the Chinese team will give up without a fight when they meet stronger opponents.
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