Basketball exchanges between China and the United States date back to 1979, when a U.S. university All-Star Team came to China and was beaten twice by the Chinese Army Team. The Washington Bullets' visit to China in August 1979 marked the prelude to the interaction between NBA and Chinese basketball for decades, including NBA first hosting the Chinese national team in 1985 and regularly providing training for the team through U.S. coaching clinics, exhibition matches and superstars paying visits to China through hundreds of touring basketball events. Via TV, magazines, newspapers and the Internet, more and more Chinese have become hooked on NBA-mania. Carmelo Anthony, Lebron James, Dwight Howard, Kobe Bryant, Jason Kidd and others on the 2008 U.S. "Dream Team" are widely known. Chinese fans eagerly await the spectacular slam dunks and court antics of these stars during the Olympics.

China's foremost sporting son

Another NBA superstar in the opening game drew much attention all around China. Yao Ming, 2.26 meters tall, the anchor of the Chinese national team at center, has become a national hero since his first pick by the Houston Rockets in the 2002 NBA draft. He is not the first Chinese basketball player to compete in the world's most popular professional game. Song Tao and Wang Zhizhi were drafted respectively by the Atlanta Hawks in 1986 and the Dallas Mavericks in 1999. But only the chiseled-faced Yao has taken the NBA by storm.

"Yao Ming has the potential, the capability, of changing the future of basketball," said Bill Walton, a famous NBA commentator, after watching Yao's games when he was only 20 years old. Walton had clearly seen the potential in the young rising star.

As the starting center for six successive NBA All-Star Games, Yao not only has a strong frame and excellent shooting skills, but also a sharp mind and amiable personality. Children model themselves on Yao because of his effort, diligence and accomplishments. Even basketball fans in remote Chinese provinces are able to watch Yao on television. His success in the NBA is encouraging children to live their dreams and believe in themselves. Meanwhile, basketball has become an important bridge connecting people from different cultures. Yao has a lot of friends in the NBA, including Shaquille O'Neal who calls him "Gemener" (meaning "brother" in Chinese). Yao's Restaurant and Bar is often full of celebrities; the film The Year of the Yao and his biography Yao?A Life in Two Worlds, co-written by Richard Butcher of ESPN magazine, have been a big success. Yao Ming, ranked fifth in Time magazine's 100 Olympic Athletes to Watch issue on July 27, and he is changing the definition of sport in China and the United States.

Comparing the two countries, American basketball, especially the NBA, values speed, efficiency, power and diversity, and it is personalized and extroverted; while Chinese basketball requires cooperation, practicality and values the honor of the team represented by Yao.

Olympic spirit the winner

Sports Illustrated, a famous American magazine, when analyzing international sports structure, predicted the most significant cross-cultural handshake would be between Dwight Howard and Yao Ming in the Olympic basketball opener, second only to the Richard Nixon-Mao Zedong meeting in 1972, which initiated a new era of cooperation between the two countries.

In the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, Team USA finished first in the medals race with 103, of which 35 were gold; China overtook Russia and ranked second with 63 medals, 32 of which were gold. The Chinese men's team lost every match against the U.S. team in the previous four Olympic Games, yet the game on August 10 was considered by many fans as the competition of sports image between China and the United States. While the score was important to fans, the image of Chinese athletes over the three decades of reform and opening up and the Olympic spirit of "higher, faster, stronger" is much more important.

Yao had the final word when he expressed how he felt after the big battle. "This is a personal Olympics for me. Everyone is proud. It felt great, all the flags and people cheering. It was a great atmosphere."