John Calipari and China Use Basketball to Bridge the Great Wall

October will be a fun time in the city of Memphis with the college basketball season kicking off and the University of Memphis Tigers being ranked preseason number one according to most sports watchers. With a high-flying team and a national schedule opportunities will be endless for Coach John Calipari to build up his work in building a national program with a team stuck in a mediocre conference.

But unlike his ability to schedule teams like Gonzaga and Georgetown, Kansas and Texas, the University of Memphis will be getting some national flavor this fall as fifteen coaches from mainland China will arrive in Memphis for two weeks of coaching shadowing on the campus of the university. And one of them will remain and basically serve as an intern for the 2007-2008 basketball season. A phenomenal coupe for a team that has little history and no national attention, the ability to get China and its Chinese Basketball Association to agree to a four-year agreement between the university and the country will have benefits beyond the game on the court.

While Yao Ming has become the most dominate center in the National Basketball Association and this year, the Milwaukee Bucks selected a Chinese player in the first round, the game of basketball in China appears to be in a typhoon of sorts. Unlike American basketball, where competition is based on a continual progression of leagues, teams, and athletic tracks, basketball China is relegated to less development focused activities. So a player with a solid game at fifteen will see little growth over the next three years in comparison to an American player who has his game honed through high school and then the AAU circuit as well as the summer basketball camps.

What is missing in China is a constructive method of teaching the game beyond the fundamentals and this is where John Calipari hopes to bridge the gap. While the Great Wall of China has stood the test of time and been a sign of defense for centuries, the lack of development Chinese basketball players has caused them to lag in international competition. And with the Olympics set to begin in Beijing in 2008, the opportunity to partner with an American program could not come at a better time.

While in the long term the possibility is there for Chinese players to attend American prep schools and colleges the real goal of the partnership between the University of Memphis and the Chinese Basketball Association is to develop the coaches who will develop the talent. That will allow John Calipari to not only push the brand and style of basketball that the Tigers play but also his coaching methods and the various aspects of an effective basketball program in the US versus what is being done in China today.

The simplest way to describe it would be to say China is in the industrial revolution and competes internationally with countries and programs that are in the new technological revolution. There is no real competition taking place because of the vast divide between the two competing entities.

While John Calipari is a huge marketing genius that has been called a bit of a self-promoter, the impact of the partnership between he, the University of Memphis and the basketball folks in China will have an immeasurable impact on the way the game is played in China for many years to come. And the level of play will increase, further pushing the agenda of NBA Commissioner David Stern, making basketball a global sport like soccer.