The NBA Goes Courtin’

NBA scouts have long realized that there’s one thing you can’t teach even the most skilled basketball player–height. In search of verticality, the long arm of U.S. basketball recruiting has stretched out in the past two decades from Australia (the Phoenix Suns’ 7-ft. 2-in. Luc Longley) to Yugoslavia (the Sacramento Kings’ 7-ft. 1-in. Vlade Divac) and now, gingerly, to China. Wang Zhizhi–who shoots like a dream and dribbles pretty nimbly–has the one thing that NBA scouts know even four years of NCAA ball could never give him–7 ft. 1 in. Says Dale Brown, who tried unsuccessfully to lure him to Louisiana State: “Wang is ready for the NBA right now.” And the NBA is very ready for Wang.

It isn’t certain that the 22-year-old will be posting up against Shaq (7 ft. 1 in.) anytime soon, however. Wang is the starting center for the Bayi Rockets–the team of the People’s Liberation Army–and even when he peels off his basketball doublet, he belongs to the army. In China, which is light-years away from NBA-style unions and agents, a team has almost total control over a player’s rights. The P.L.A. would fight to keep him. He led the Rockets to five national championships. Says Dallas Mavericks assistant coach Donn Nelson, whose team tabbed Wang in this year’s draft: “When we drafted him, we understood the challenges of getting him over to play.”

Last month Nelson and Mavericks owner Ross Perot Jr. jetted to Beijing to try to cajole the P.L.A. into letting Wang head west. It was a no go, though Nelson remains optimistic: “We didn’t expect him to join us right away, but there is a strong possibility in the future.” Wang seems eager. “I really enjoyed the game against the American Dream Team at the 1996 Olympics,” he says (the U.S. won, 133-70). It’s not only Wang’s height that appeals to the NBA. U.S. basketball is already popular in China, and a Chinese player would boost that popularity to a new level. Says Mary Reiling Spencer, vice president and managing director for NBA Pacific: “It would be huge.”

The NBA doesn’t want to appear to be “poaching” China’s best players. While a Chinese star would help ratings, a big indigenous basketball market may be even more important. And the Chinese want to win. They have hopes of a medal in Sydney next year. Though Beijing has permitted a few soccer players to work in Europe, its Sports Ministry keeps them mostly at home, training, Soviet-style, for the next Olympics. China’s free market does not yet extend to national treasures like Wang.

That’s not slowing down American scouts, who gathered in Fukuoka, Japan, to check out some of the region’s best dribblers. “The only country with more basketball talent than China is the U.S.,” says Brown, the former L.S.U. coach. And among China’s 1.3 billion people are plenty of tall, eager youngsters. “China has done a very good job of finding the size and cultivating it,” says Dwane Casey, a Seattle SuperSonics assistant coach who has been scouting the region. Now the challenge is to get that size overseas.