TIMEasia.com: Asian Heroes

DANNY TURNER FOR TIME

ASIAN HEROES
TIME salutes the individuals who inspire us

QUICK VOTE
Who inspires you? Click here to vote

GALLERY
See which heroes have made it onto the cover of TIME CLICK HERE

Dreaming Big, Standing Tall
China's No. 1 hoopster WANG ZHIZHI is living large in the NBA—and staying true to his roots
By HANNAH BEECH

At 2.16 m, Wang Zhizhi is used to people looking up to him. But that doesn't mean he likes it. China's first export to the hallowed NBA is, after all, a rather shy man. Yes, millions of Chinese fans follow Big Zhi's every move with the play-off-bound Dallas Mavericks, where his on-court prowess burnishes China's dreams of distinguishing itself on the international sporting stage. He was even named China's most popular athlete in a nationwide poll earlier this year. But the 24-year-old center is a tad uncomfortable with all the adulation. When he returns to China this summer to play for the national team, he doesn't want any of his teammates asking him about his NBA exploits. "We're all playing for the same team," he says. "There's no reason that one of us should stick out any more than the others."

Recruited to the People's Liberation Army's basketball team as a young teenager, Wang has always been the obedient soldier. Even though he quickly grew into one of China's marquee players, Wang earned less money than a middling basketballer in Europe. He lived in a tiny dorm room, adhered to a rigid curfew and ate what his elders told him to: rice, rice and more rice. Most importantly, he quietly watched as his dream to play in America was deferred soon after the 1999 NBA draft when the Army team felt the Americans didn't kowtow low enough for them to release their prized player. Even after he finally headed West last year, the indignations didn't stop. As late as this March, Wang knew that his Chinese team, struggling in its own Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) play-offs, could recall its AWOL soldier at any time—masking the return as a "matter of national security." "He is a grown man and one of China's greatest stars," says one basketball insider who has followed Wang's progress for years. "But he still has no control over his own destiny."

It is precisely that lack of control and Wang's quiet ability to rise above it that endears the star athlete to his legions of fans. After all, millions of Chinese also have little choice over many life decisions, and they admire Wang's ability to overcome adversity through stoic resolve. After Wang was negged from NBA play in his first attempt three years ago, he was so depressed that he lost his customary position as the CBA's MVP. But by the end of the season, he had rebounded and helped his team capture a sixth-consecutive league title by scoring 40 points in the 2001 final. That impressive performance helped convince the Mavs that Wang was truly worth a fight. Writes a Beijing native named Zhao Xian on a Wang website: "Young people in China don't have many heroes, but Big Zhi is someone we can identify with and believe in. He works hard and is a real-life role model."

Finally, after years of soldierly restraint, Lieut. Wang of the People's Liberation Army is even finding a little time to let loose. Sure, the NBA has regulations, too, but they're the kind of protean rules that bend to the oversized egos of players like Dennis Rodman or Allen Iverson. So Wang has been living it up in Dallas—in his own way, of course. He eats what he wants: sometimes three T-bones at one sitting ("not a single grain of rice," he announces, fork in hand). He goes where he wants when visiting the U.S. capital: the White House, the Pentagon—and of course Chinatown (hold the Smithsonian museums, he says, which would feel too much like a school field trip). He lives in his own apartment and happily tells visitors stepping past piles of laundry that, yeah, his place is a little messy ("there's no one here to tell me not to throw a shirt where I want.") Says an Asian basketball executive who recently visited him in Dallas: "For the first time, I've seen Wang truly happy. He's transformed from a basketball soldier to a real person."

The pressure will be on Wang again when he returns to China to play for the national team in the summer. Despite high hopes, the country's squad has not lived up to its hype. Chinese basketball officials are hoping that Wang, with his NBA-honed skills, will help buoy the team. Yet the same sports cadres also want to modulate Wang's popularity back home. Although they badly need to learn from Chinese players' NBA experience—another Chinese hailing from Inner Mongolia, Menk Batere, now plays with the Denver Nuggets—sports bureaucrats back home are also concerned that too much good press will cause fans to abandon their home league for the jazzier NBA. Plus, they worry that, if given the chance, all of China's top talent will flee for the NBA, leaving their league with the dregs of basketball. Case in point: Wang's team lost its customary supremacy over the CBA after he left for the States. Meanwhile, Batere's team, the Beijing Ducks, has seen its attendance figures plummet since the center's departure in March.

Perhaps it's no surprise, then, that Chinese sportswriters have been told to tone down their pro-Wang coverage, lest the CBA lose out. When Wang wrapped up a late March game with an eminently respectable career-high of 18 points, the Chinese press grumbled that he hadn't played many minutes at all and that his defensive skills were lacking. And Wang, true to his unassuming nature, says: "There is so much about my game that I must improve, so it's hard to talk about the few places where I've done O.K." But the fans, of course, aren't fooled by either the Chinese media's blackballing or Wang's own modesty. After all, this is the man who was honored with "Wang Zhizhi Day" in San Francisco. He's had a signature T-bone named after him at a popular Dallas steak house. He's even been depicted on a postage stamp in the tiny African nation of Liberia. "Sometimes people stick out, even though they don't want to," says the big man himself. Especially when they're 2.16 m tall.

promotion