Operation Yao Ming: The Chinese Sports Empire, American Big Business, and the Making of an NBA Superstar [Hardcover]

Brook Larmer (Author)

Book Description

Release date: November 3, 2005

The riveting story behind NBA giant Yao Ming, the ruthless Chinese sports machine that created him, and the East-West struggle over China’s most famous son.

The NBA’s 7‘6" All-Star Yao Ming has changed the face of basketball, revitalizing a league desperate for a new hero while becoming a multimillionaire pitchman for Reebok and McDonald’s. But his journey to America—like that of his forgotten foil, 7‘1" Wang Zhizhi—began long before he set foot on the world’s brightest athletic stage.

Operation Yao Ming opens with the story of the two boys’ parents, basketball players brought together by Chinese officials intent on creating a generation of athletes who could bring glory to their resurgent motherland. Their children would have no more freedom to choose their fates. By age thirteen, Yao was pulled out of sports school to join the Shanghai Sharks pro team, following in the footsteps of Wang, then the star of the People’s Liberation Army team. Rumors of the pair of Chinese giants soon attracted the NBA and American sports companies, all eager to tap a market of 1.3 billion consumers.

In suspenseful scenes, journalist Brook Larmer details the backroom maneuverings that brought China’s first players to the NBA. Drawing on years of firsthand reporting, Larmer uncovers the disturbing truth behind China’s drive to produce Olympic champions, while also taking readers behind the scenes of America’s multibillion-dollar sports empire. Caught in the middle are two young men—one will become a mega-rich superstar and hero to millions, the other a struggling athlete rejected by his homeland yet lost in America.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The 7'5" Yao Ming didn't get where he is today because of some lucky genes and a good three-point shot. Everything about him, from birth to first endorsement deal, was planned by a confluence of government and business interests intent on creating a superstar. Basketball has been popular in China since the late 19th century, so a government with a Soviet-style, militaristic sports system intent on creating world-class athletes thought little of mating its tallest athletes in an attempt to pass on their genes. Thus in 1980, Yao was born to the tallest couple in China, the result of matchmaking that carried with it the dark shadow of eugenics. From there, a government campaign worked to turn "a boy with an ideal genetic makeup into the best basketball player in Chinese history," writes Larmer, and it wasn't long before Nike and the NBA had their hooks in him. Larmer, Newsweek's former Shanghai bureau chief, crafts his narrative well, explaining the byzantine interests competing for their pound of Yao's flesh with admirable simplicity. Yao's story is so controlled that when he finally overcomes his initial clumsiness and starts rebelling against his government at book's end, it's hard not to feel empathy for the gentle giant.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Larmer, former Newsweek bureau chief in Shanghai (and Buenos Aires, Miami, and Hong Kong), traces the development and emergence of Yao Ming as China's first bona fide NBA star, from the arranged marriage of his parents--both reluctant but sensational, and tall, basketball players in China--to his care and feeding as a youth by PRC sports officials, to Nike's savvy insinuation into Yao's career and into mainstream Chinese culture in the mid-1990s, to his number-one selection in the 2002 NBA draft. Not coincidentally, Yao's story here reflects the seismic shifts taking place in Chinese sports, post-1949; it starts with a country virtually invisible in the global arena that becomes, by the time of Yao's emergence, an international power not embarrassed to flex its muscle. If Larmer's account succeeds in contextualing Yao in the high-octane world of the NBA, it also succeeds in revealing one aspect of China's more fundamental struggle with its socioeconomic identity in the world today. Alan Moores
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Gotham (November 3, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592400787
• ISBN-13: 978-1592400782
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,111,341 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #76 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Basketball > Professional

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Yao story interesting; broader Chineses history is fascinating October 13, 2006

By E. WIe

Format:Hardcover

I am NOT a huge sports nut...you know the kind who rattles off stats and knows all the players, but I really enjoyed this book. The story of Yao Ming was very interesting especially as it interlaces with China's history. I think it gives a very interesting look into the evolution of Chinese sports, politics and government. It kept me interested and I really looked forward to picking it up again every evening to read.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Story but....... April 3, 2006

By Don from SF

Format:Hardcover

I read the entire book while on a 11 hour flight from the US to China. All in all, the book was good, lots of background info on Yao, his parents and even disgraced hoops star Wang Zhi-Zhi.

However, I'm not sure I buy into the book's theory of China trying to be matchmaker and have Yao's parents to produce tall offspring. Why stop at Yao's parents? They certainly weren't the only tall people in China at the time. As most of us basketball fans know by now, Yao Ming (by himself), cannot carry the Chinese National Basketball team. The team needs more capable players to compete against the European and American teams.

Another minor complaint of the book is the re-cycling of previously written articles about Yao. Perhaps there just isn't a ton of written material about Yao, but I know there were a few sections regarding Yao there were paraphased from other sources. As an avid reader of anything Yao, I wish the author could have been more discreet or rewrote the source material differently. As is, it was just annoying to read something and feel like "dang, I know that came from somewhere before".

I did finish the book by the end of my plane ride. :) All in all, despite the misgivings of the theories and the apparently recycling of some articles, the book was fairly entertaining and you do learn something about Yao, his family and others in the Chinese sports empire.

5.0 out of 5 stars amazing book about big YAO January 17, 2012

By SdDSS

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

very good book to know a broader background of Yao Ming and the cultural difference between US and China. But I doubt some of the information in the book, like the marriage between his parents, cannot believe it's only for the genetic consideration by the government. Anyway, a must read book for Yao!