An NBL All-Star team will play China's national team in Beijing, Jilin and Dongguan on July 5, 7 and 9, with all three games broadcast on Fox Sports in Australia, according to James Porteous of the SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST. Team China will then take on Melbourne United and the Brisbane Bullets Down Under as it prepares for the Asia Cup in August. It is "all part of a masterplan" that NBL CEO Jeremy Loeliger hopes will see the Aussie game "take off among China’s army of basketball fans." The sport "is generally reckoned to be the most popular in the country," but right now it is the Chinese Basketball Association and the NBA that "dominate." But with former NBA Hall-of-Famer Yao Ming now in charge of the "previously haplessly run" CBA, Loeliger believes there are "huge opportunities for China and Australia to work together;" he even aims to have a "Chinese" team in the NBL by next year. He said, "If we're going to make Asia one of the global centers for basketball, we need to work closely together as the two big powers in region. ... I think basketball in China is about to take off" (SCMP, 6/30).
