"I was very surprised at how big the kids were," gushes NBA Slam Dunk champion Josh Smith of the Atlanta Hawks. "When you think of Asia, you think that everybody’s small, but they’re not. These kids are huge. I’m not used to being around kids as tall as me or taller."
True enough, 29 of these kids - aged 17 and below - were listed at 6’7" or taller, with three seven-footers among them. The height was so staggering that the two Filipino entries, Thomas Babilonia and Migs Maniego, suffered by being made to play different positions than they were used to. Babilonia, 6’4", was made to play guard. Neither of them were named to the All-Star teams.
"If this is the future of Chinese basketball, then we’re in trouble," says SportsTV host Jinno Rufino, who accompanied this writer and fellow broadcaster Anthony Suntay here. "I have never seen this many players this tall, this young. And the talent is amazing.
Jared Scoines, a 6’6" forward from Australia, won the three-point shooting contest, sinking four in a row from the first rack and draining a total of 12 triples in the given minute. Meanwhile, 6’7" hometown favorite Xu Yong defeated five other contenders in the slam dunk contest, but not without some serious threats. Zhang Zhao Xu, all of 7', did a Larry Nance, dunking two basketballs, and almost getting a perfect "10" from the judges. The panel was made up of six-time NBA Most Valuable Player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, camp director and former Seattle Supersonic Detlef Schrempf, Smith, former NBA slam dunk champion Desmond Mason of the Milwaukee Bucks, and former New York Knicks general manager Scott Layden.
"What surprises me is how well these big kids shoot from the outside," said a stunned Suntay. "If their overall skill level is this high at this age, imagine how good they’ll be when they make the Chinese national team in a couple of years."
But their game is far from perfect, for now. Twenty years ago, when the Atlanta Hawks first visited China, their players were still shooting jump shots even at two feet from the basket. Today, there seems to be only minor changes that need to be done to bring them up to par with the best teams in the world.
"I was trying to teach the kids that they are going to get banged," admitted Mason, who won the slam dunk title at the 2001 NBA All-Star Game. "And I would let them bump me, so they could get used to it. I think that’s one thing that they have to adjust to. If you look at the difference between Yao Ming’s first year in the NBA and now, for example, he didn’t really want to dunk on people and get in their faces. Today, it’s a different story."
That’s the reason why adidas also included a course in "Basketball Psychology and Attitude," taught by Jabbar himself. This is to narrow the cultural gap for Asians playing an American game, at least on the basketball court.
"The purpose of basketball psychology is to make these players realize that there is a certain behavior for a basketball player," Jabbar explained. "And trash talking, for instance, is a part of that. If they can tune that stuff out, they will be more effective as basketball players."
Jabbar, who has visited China and its territories only four times since 1972, said that the region has a tremendous potential for greatness not just in basketball, but in overall athletic performance.
That only means more trouble for the Philippines.