China has decided to ban the use of the term NBA in its writing. instead of the three simple letters, NBA the Chinese government has rolled out this phrase in Chinese 美国男子职业篮球联赛.

The romanized version of the chinese characters, otherwise known as Pinyin, phrase for NBA is: Mei Guo Nan Zi Zhi Ye Lan Qiu Lian Sai, or “American men from the professional basketball league” when translated in the most literal way.

NBA.... You have been banned in China!

According to this report on NBC, the reasons for this departure from simplicity to borderline advanced Chinese:

“Such abuse of language … destroys the harmonious and healthy cultural environment and causes an unhealthy social impact.“

Speaking as someone who has spent the better part of a year living in China, I could not disagree with this statement more. In Shanghai, when I go to the basketball courts, the common bond we come away from either by speaking in English or Chinese, is discussing NBA.

I often say “篮球“ and people will nod and act somewhat disinterested. However, when I say NBA, people’s eyes light up and there is a general excitement causing them to become more engaged and share their opinion on teams, and go out of their way to justify their views.

If I was to say 美国男子职业篮球联赛, or “American men from the professional basketball league” I would likely elicit some crazy looks from my blacktop contemporaries, and futher alienate and distance myself from becoming their peer.

The truth is, the NBA phrase is not going anywhere.

I can say with great certainty the phrase NBA will still be alive and present on all NBA related merchandise being sold in Chinese stores throughout the country, making it hard for me to fathom why the government would want to cloud the clarity between the NBA brand in print versus what you watch on CCTV (the chinese television network that plays NBA games).

While walking the streets in Shanghai I constantly keep my eye roving in all directions to see what variances I can discover between the NBA presence in the USA and China. After all it’s the little things in life that makes life interesting.

The first thing I noticed happened during the first night I was here. After playing some pick up basketball I was having dinner with a close friend who ordered a Tsingtao beer to help extinguish the fire of some delicious Hunan food..

Tsingtao is China’s top selling beer, and undisputed Chinese champion of beers. It is like Budweiser is the king of beers stateside, but in all actuality, tastes much better.

Budweiser is the official beer of the NBA in the United States.

So why all this rambling about beer?

Tsingtao happens to also be the official beer of the NBA. So, the NBA has two official beers?

To put this in perspective, Jerry West’s logoman image can be found on billions of bottles and cans all over China. Clever move NBA, but why not keep the loyalty to Budweiser here in China? My guess is the NBA realizes, like the rest of the world, that Budweiser simply sucks.

The reason I share this story with you is because at the time my friend half-jokingly stated that if you slap an NBA logo on a product in China, you can sell it like a wildfire. OK enough about the beer, more about the wildfire.

The point of this entire piece is to show you not about endorsers using NBA logos, but to cover and enlighten you about products manufactured by the NBA for sale in China.

While seeking out the wireless router I am using to publish and syndicate this piece, I had to make a pit-stop at a Watson’s drugstore for a bottle of water. While there I realized I had run out of shaving gel (something I conveniently try to forget until my wife inconveniently reminds me about) and trotted my way through many pushy locals to grab whatever inexpensive yet recognizable and, most importantly, trustworthy brand I could find.

What blew my mind was what I discovered next.

Careful, skin care comes with a costly price tag!

The NBA has its very own exclusive line of men’s personal hygiene products.

The friendly woman working proudly tried to tell me this product was extremely popular in the United States, and had just arrived in Shanghai for the Chinese people to enjoy and consume.

I was puzzled.

I have spent my entire life in the United States, and have never heard or seen of such products before. Ever.

The NBA line had a huge portion of the meager shelf space dedicated to men’s hygiene within the Watsons shop as if the NBA skin care line was Shaq, and all other brands were normal to undersized sized NBA centers, metaphorically speaking.

This vast array of NBA men’s products features a deodorant, skin lotion, and skin cleansing 3-bottle system.

The NBA even got cheeky and named the system “Transition: Skincare For the Modern Man” calling their product comfortable and cool. I could imagine the slogans right there “Just like the NBA transition game, you too can make action packed impact on the life of your skin” or something along those lines.

The system works in a 3 bottle sequence:

Bottle #1: Transition: Charcoal Detoxifying Cleaner
Bottle #2: Invigorating Face Scrub
Bottle #3: Abyssal Mineral Clay Cleanser

I was in disbelief. A NBA skin care product in the US would be laughed off the shelves.

So, it turns out my friend was correct. These products were selling well, as I saw large gaps in the inventory displays near the front entrances of the store.

These products were priced higher than well known established brands such as Nivea and Biore by about 10-15 RMB (The Chinese Yuan) per bottle at 95 RMB apiece. That’s around $12.00 each. Pretty heavy pricing if you ask me.

To summarize this entire shopping experience, the NBA has selected China as the venue to venture into the skin care market, knowing damn well that anything they pump their logo on will sell in bulk. Whether or not this would work anywhere else matters not. It works in China, and the NBA will continue to exploit their popularity and profit.

The NBA has created a sales strategy for the retail sales force of China to misinform customers that their products are bigger than Godzilla in the United States while selling them at a higher price point than products I know work well and entirely trust purchasing.

The hype is working, and I only pray that the players can use this sort of leverage to make a penny of this during the upcoming CBA negotiations.

Why can’t Tim Donaghy’s “Blowing the Whistle: The Culture of Fraud in the NBA” not be published? I think we all have the right to hear what he has to say.

I believe that if congressional hearings can be occur to indict athletes who use illegal drugs to gain a competitive yet unfair advantage,   shouldn’t we adhere to protecting  the sanctity of fairness by investigating the officials as well?

The only one with somethign to lose is David Stern.

What affects a game more? A player who can hit a few more homers of a full season, or the person who calls a travel instead of a charge?

The official decides the outcome of every single play. It is not like Alex Rodriguez can cal balls and strikes.

We listen to every professional athlete who becomes a whistle blower after they have been busted for performance enhancing drugs. Jose Canseco’s book “Juiced” was published, afterall.

Athletes seem to get a pass by apologizing, and then we all seem to move on.

Why not put Donaghy’s book under the microscope as well? Just sit him down with a lie detector, and go through the book, page by page.

With all the millions of dollars that are spent by us, the consumer,  on NBA products and entertainment, we deserve to have absolute truth.

If Donaghy wasn’t the only referee participating in illegal activities,  we deserve the right to know. Just use tax dollars to have congressional hearings.

The fact of the matter is we celebrate our heroes on the court, and if the success or failure is derailed by the referees playing games or placing bets on who will call what foul first, in order to avoid having to tip the ballboy $20 after the game,  the entire honor of the NBA is defaced:

We had another variation of this gag simply referred to as the “first foul of the game” bet. While still in the locker room before tip-off, we would make a wager on which of us would call the game’s first foul. That referee would either have to pay the ball boy or pick up the dinner tab for the other two referees. Sometimes, the ante would be $50 a guy. Like the technical foul bet, it was hilarious — only this time we were testing each other’s nerves to see who had the guts to hold out the longest before calling a personal foul. There were occasions when we would hold back for two or three minutes — an eternity in an NBA game — before blowing the whistle. It didn’t matter if bodies were flying all over the place; no fouls were called because no one wanted to lose the bet.

In closing I ask this: If a murder like Charles Manson can have a book published, why can’t a crooked referee have his published?

Yao Ming now has huge burden for his extremely large yet fragile feet (Photo by Bill Baptist/NBAE via Getty Images)

Will Yao Ming  be jealous of fellow countryman Sun Yue becoming a part of Chinese history in becoming the first Chinese born player to achieve wining an  NBA Championship? The answer is YES.

We here at protect the paint touched this topic briefly yesterday while introducing a series of images of the Lakers Championship parade.

Amongst rumors circulating about Yao Ming’s whereabouts next season,  he told reporters in Shanghai “There’s a little bit of envy,” followed up with “If I didn’t have feel even some jealousy, then I’m afraid that really would make me a little too much of a slacker.”

The latest rumors have Yao Ming possibly moving to Cleveland.  The Asian investment  group  including JianHua Huang, a Chinese businessman who has past sponsorship deals with large franchises such as the New York Yankees, has acquired approximately up to 15 percent of Cavaliers Operating Company, the business entity owning the Cavaliers and operating Quicken Loans Arena.

Chinese players have a reputation for playing with teams with surrounding Chinese communities. A team with Chinese ownership must have even more appeal.

If Yao Ming makes the move to Cleveland, he would be playing with Lebron James, unquestionably the best 1-2 combination of his career. If Yao remains healthy, Cleveland would be an instant title contender. It is hard to imagine any team in the Eastern Conference moving past the duo of Yao Ming and Lebron James in the NBA Playoffs.

Sun Yue had no real role in the Lakers success. He played a combined total of 0 minutes during the entire post season. Yet he gets the ring while Yao Ming, whose team was eliminated by Los Angeles,  sat around watching while he recoverd from his injuries.

It is a safe bet that if  Yao Mings does not win a title soon, he had better be ready to see Sun Yue billboards dominating the scenery in China.

Yao1_billboard

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Yao Might not be a billboard icon in China.

Lakers fans celebrate as damaged local shops try to recover.

In light of recent rioting after the Lakers won their 14th NBA title, the the NBA-champion Los Angeles Lakers managed to generate funding for their celebration parade. Private donors have agreed to cover close to $1 million of the costs for the  victory parade.

This should  dissuade a controversy over funding of the festivities by the cash-strapped city. However, it brings to light another issue for consideration.

Why are the Lakers not held (perhaps even only partially) responsible in helping local business recover from the rioting caused by their victory?

Los Angeles as a whole has been trying to repaint the image of the downtown Los Angeles area. It has taken may years for this new reuptation to be built, and it has been gaining steam.

This recent activity has thrust this image right back to where it was in the minds of locals: dangerous, unsafe and unstable. This step backwards in reputation will surely have a negative impact on these businesses and will add to the loss and damage  done.

I feel it would be a great gesture of an NBA Championship caliber franchise to support the community and adjacent local businesses. These businesses were damaged only after Lakers fans propagated en masse to loot, destroy, and pillage for goods during a post victory “celebration”.

I find it ironic that these businesses who rely on the Lakers fans and Staples Center patrons for their survival end up receiving their biggest loss by their hands.

The Lakers should pay some sort of restitution to their local businesses and perhaps give money back in an effort to repair what is essentially their fault.

Alas, it is 11:00 AM PST as this blog is finished, and the parade has already begun.

Maybe it is true that sometimes when you win, you really do lose…..