Nets v Suns in Macau: tracing the NBA’s rise, fall and return to China

Hongkonger Wilson Tsang Wai-shun began following basketball in secondary school, a time when the National Basketball Association (NBA) experienced one of its fastest expansions, acquiring both fortune and fame with fans.

While much of that was down to the likes of global superstar Michael Jordan, in China, the sport had by then been popular for decades.

But then NBA commissioner David Stern’s initial 1987-88 agreement to broadcast games on China Central Television, around the time Jordan was transcending the game, turned the American league into a major player in the country’s sporting landscape.

“The emergence of Jordan, and around the same time, this Japanese manga called Slam Dunk became popular … all these contributed to why a lot of people in Hong Kong got into basketball,” Tsang, who is now in his 40s, said.

It remains an integral part of his life, and the sales manager is one of several administrators of “Slamtalk”, a Hong Kong-based online forum with 46,300 members.

“Basketball is indispensable for many people … as adults, the meaning is to maintain friendships and watch the games together,” he said.

For Bobby Chan, a 30-year-old designer who runs the Instagram page lakers_hkfansclub with 33,500 followers, the love for basketball began in primary school.