Why a Booktrail?
The story of a struggling Chinese basketball team and its often comical attempt to right its fortune
Brave Dragons
What you need to know before your trail
When the Shanxi Brave Dragons, one of China’s worst professional basketball teams, hired former NBA coach Bob Weiss, the teams owner, Boss Wang, promised that Weiss would be allowed to Americanize his players by teaching them advanced basketball culture. That promise would be broken from the moment Weiss landed in China. Desperate for his team to play like Americans, Wanga peasant turned steel tycoonnevertheless refused to allow his players the freedom and individual expression necessary to truly change their games.
Travel Guide
The world of Chinese sports
Readers meet the Brave Dragons, a cast of colorful, sometimes heartbreaking oddballs from around the world: the ambitious Chinese assistant coach, Liu Tie, who believes that Chinese players are genetically inferior and can improve only through the repetitious drilling once advocated by ancient kung fu masters; the moody and selfish American import, Bonzi Wells, a former NBA star so unnerved by China that initially he locks himself in his apartment; the Taiwanese point guard, Little Sun, who is demonized by his mainland Chinese coaches; and the other Chinese players, whose lives sometimes seem little different from those of factory workers.
As readers follow the team on a fascinating road trip through modern Chinafrom glamorous Shanghai and bureaucratic Beijing to the booming port city Tianjin and the polluted coal capital of Taiyuanwe see Weiss learn firsthand what so many other foreigners in China have discovered: China changes only when and how it wants to change.
The map shows the sports arenas from each city in the tour
Booktrail Boarding Pass: Brave Dragons
Destination: China Author/Guide Jim Yardley
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