Just in case, I will post them here too:
Chinese Basketball Theory </font>
Sep. 8, 2002 - by Arthur Volbert
When Rik Smits (223-C-66, agent: Bartelstein Mark, college: Marist) was a freshman at Marist College, just up the road from me in Poughkeepsie NY, I predicted he would be in the NBA one day. At the time, Rik was less proficient than China's guards and I was among those pursuading Marist to recognize his talent.
I also gave Rik some good advice about dealing with journalists -- advice he appears to have taken during his 12-year NBA career. At the time, I was also writing about Chinese Basketball Theory, as Rik will confirm.
Now China has a 7-5 center with even more potential than Rik, and a 7-1 center whom I also project as an NBA star -- exactly what my theory predicted.
My theory also predicts that China's guards will be even more proficient than their centers but this has not yet happened because of the style of play in China's professional leagues and the junior programs feeding them.
Chinese have advantages over Caucasians, as a group, in quickness, jumping and body control. They have a disadvantage in the leg-drive needed for staight-ahead sprinting, but sprinting skill has little correlation with the abilities needed for basketball though it does in soccer because of the longer runs necessary.
All athletic talents can be looked at separately, and are allocated according to distribution curves, so some individuals will be strong in a talent in which their group is weak. But the high-end of the curve, the amount of top performers, will be determined by the average ability of the group and the population size of the group.
Northern Chinese are a fairly tall people, taller than Southern Chinese, Koreans, Japanese and natives of Taiwan. A former scout for the Dallas Mavericks reported that most Chinese seven-footers came from the north, as I predicted. According to TNT television, China has 100 seven-footers in its basketball program.
I predict that the Chinese will produce guards and small forwards who can both penetrate and dunk, yet be great at passing and shooting. That type of player is rare, even in America. But first China must allow pressure defense and dunking in its top domestic leagues, or these players' skills are wasted, and the players themselves go unrecognized -- like Hu Guang playing in the second division.
The Chinese want to do well in the 2008 Olympics for political reasons. I wish to prove Chinese Basketball Theory. So I am giving China advice which will help it attain its goals, coincidentally assisting mine.