Kobe bigger than Yao, maybe bigger than Mao

BEIJING -- The public-address announcer, though suitably caffeinated, has no chance. Before he even begins to belt out the name, a trembling anticipation grips 18,000 people inside the Olympic Basketball Gymnasium. "WHOOAAAAAA ... AHHHHHH!!" goes the quick, staccato cheer, distinctive to the Chinese and their rock-star-mad love for their favorite player. The exultant hero trots onto the court, aglow with pride, nodding in appreciation.

Yao Ming, one would guess.

One would be wrong.

"I'm very happy about it. To be this well-received, it feels great, man," said Kobe Bryant, a polarizing figure in America but somehow as popular in China as chopsticks and ping pong. "I feel right at home."

I've seen some oddities during my days and nights here: a talking golf cart, a Kung Fu exhibition at a chic nightclub, buses and cars that keep driving through crosswalks when pedestrians have the green light, animal penis on menus, an immovable donkey on a back road near the Great Wall, David Schwimmer and Billy Dec schmoozing up the mayor at a Chicago 2016 party and a Japanese judo coach who said this after his powerhouse team underachieved and won only two gold medals: "I have to bear the responsibility, and I think that I should slit my belly to apologize."

But nothing has been more shocking than the discovery that Kobe is a bigger sensation than Yao, the famed 7-6 giant who has hoisted China onto the world sports map and symbolized his nation's basketball boom. Do the people here not realize that Bryant, with the possible exception of Alex Rodriguez, is the superstar athlete that Americans most like to hate? Did they miss his rape trial in Colorado, his megalomaniacal role in the Shaquille O'Neal/Lakers split, his no-show in the NBA Finals against Boston? In the States, we've learned to accept the bad with the good regarding the Kobe Experience, respecting him as the most explosive and charismatic player since Michael Jordan yet also realizing he's capable of exasperating us at any time. Here, somehow, they love him unconditionally, and if you don't believe me, note whose NBA jersey has been the top seller in China for three years. That would be Kobe's. Yao? He's 10th, down from sixth last year.

"I know he's big back home, but I think he's bigger here," said Chris Paul, one of Bryant's Team USA backcourt mates.

"I've got to go in the other direction when I'm with him. It's crazy," said U.S. star Chris Bosh, talking during a press conference in which Bryant was positioned strategically and mobbed by more media than 10 American players combined, with only LeBron James in the same ballpark. "I saw a guy after Kobe gave him an autograph, and he took off running, laughing and jumping to tell his friends. I don't know what it was like for the Beatles, but from what I've seen, it's close."

The English-language newspaper China Daily editorialized Sunday about some of the indelible names from these Olympic Games. The country's first gold-medal winner, female weightlifter Chen Xiexia, was listed. So was film director Zhang Yimou, the creative mind behing the opening ceremonies. "Not to mention NBA stars Kobe Bryant, Yao Ming and Yi Jianlian," the paper wrote, in that order.

And we won't soon forget the astonishing hullabaloo over Bryant during the ceremonies, when the predominantly Chinese crowd began chanting his name. Said Tyson Gay, the American sprinter whose would-be stardom in the 100 meters ended in disappointment: "The crowd was chanting, `Ko-be! Ko-be!" and I wanted to get next to him so I would be on TV."

Then there were the scenes in the Olympic village, where he has been mobbed by athletes from all countries during a couple of visits. Stunned that a superstar with a $136 million deal would leave Team USA's five-star digs at the Inter-Continental Hotel to hang with other Olympians, they gave Bryant the same love as the fans. You can check it out on YouTube, where footage of his second visit has drawn a hit barrage. When he happened to run into swimming icons Michael Phelps and Dara Torres, he changed roles and asked them to pose for his cellphone camera. "That's the first time I ever said, `Hey, take this picture,'" Bryant said. "I'm taking the picture and putting it in my office."

So, I suppose you want to me to psychoanalyze this phenomenon. How, in a Communist country, does Kobe Bean Bryant transcend all other figures at the Games? Having watched three Team USA games with the adoring Chinese on the west side of town, I'll try to explain. The NBA, please understand, is a hot business here. Commissioner David Stern has been eyeing China and its 1.3 billion people as prime, fertile turf for his grand globalization plan, and the strategy has helped cultivate more than 400 million hoops fans, a bigger pool than the entire U.S. population. NBA games are televised regularly, and the hugely rated broadcasts allow viewers to adopt favorite players. Bryant's magnetism has tantalized the most fans, I'm told, because he's seen as Hollywood -- a point-scoring machine who plays in Los Angeles, benefits from Nike's smothering marketing presence in China and has a seductive charm to him.

He's hardly alone, of course. The collective expanse of Team USA is treated like a traveling religious revival, too. The other night, the fans were thrilled and dancing in their seats after China's tense victory over Dirk Nowitzki and Germany. But minutes later, when the Americans took the court for the next game, they didn't miss a beat and roared with thundering approval. Last week's China-USA game was unprecedented in that the fans cheered for both teams. A basket by Yao or Yi was celebrated, yet when Kobe or two other favorites, James and Dwyane Wade, would dunk a ball, the crowd grew delirious.

Humbled by it all, Bryant tries to credit Yao. "I think he has a lot to do with that," he said. "He was the one that kind of built the bridge from China to the United States." If so, the Americans are romping across it, received here much differently than they were at the Athens Games four years ago.

"Coming to China helps it," Wade said. "Our game is very global, very big over here. There's a lot of fans that we have over here. Everywhere we go, they show their excitement for us. It wasn't like that in Greece. We were looked at as cocky athletes, overpaid and all that. But over here, they really appreciate the game of basketball that we play."

"The fans are crazy. They know you everywhere you go," said Deron Williams, who isn't in Champaign-Urbana anymore. "There's nowhere you can go in this city without being recognized. Everybody's [called] by their last name.

"Except Kobe. Kobe's `Kobe.' "

And then there's Yao. Don't get me wrong: He's an admired figure in a nation obviously proud that he has gone to the U.S., handled himself with great dignity and become a major star. After the Germany victory, he was the last one off the court and was serenaded by the audience. But at 7-6, how many people actually can relate to him here? It's revealing that his Houston Rockets teammate, Tracy McGrady, has been third on China's jersey sales list the last two years. McGrady is similar to Bryant in his extraordinary athleticism and scoring skill. In China, they seem to get more jazzed about sleek cars, in the NBA parlance, than their own towering monument.

Which might explain why Bryant, no dummy, continues to insist he'll explore the global marketplace when he's free to leave the Lakers in 2010. In Stern's zeal to market globally, he also might sabotage his own league in the negotiating leverage he creates for his greatest players. If the U.S. economy continued to be weak, why wouldn't Bryant, James and Wade try to cash in around the world? When Kobe was asked if he, like James, would consider a one-year, $50-million contract with a team overseas, he didn't hedge.

"I'd go. I'd probably go," said Bryant, who spent part of his childhood in Italy. "Like Milan or something like that, where I grew up … Do you know any reasonable person who would turn down 50?"

His raging popularity also explains why he hasn't followed up on his intentions to speak out about the Chinese government's relationship with Sudan. Last year, Bryant taped a public-service announcement denouncing the situation in Darfur, where hundreds of thousands have lost lives. "Together, we have the power to change the world," he said. Now? When asked by Yahoo Sports if he'd continue the anti-China crusade, he deflected the issue like an errant pass.

"Nothing’s changed. It's just time to play basketball," said Bryant, flip-flopping wildly. "I'm not a government official or politician. I'll let them do that."

After all, he's too busy absorbing the Beijing love. All together now:

"WHOOAAAAAA ... AHHHHHH!!"