My family hosted a Chinese exchange student from a small (only 4.5 million pop) city west of Shanghai for a long weekend. Billups (his Americanized nickname) is a delightful young man and an NBA fanatic. The Celtics are his favorite team. We watched the NBA network and saw a replay of the ’87 All-Star game. He knew all the players. He knows US cities if they have an NBA franchise. I knew of the NBA’s popularity in China but his devotion to the game was astounding.
On Sunday, we took Billups to my son’s baseball practice. Billups had never even heard of baseball before.
David Stern is smiling. MLB’s commissioner not so much!