Chinese Basketball, It's Faaaantastic

(Reader Travis Mays Hayes lives in China. These are his notes on attending a playoff series for the Chinese Basketball Association. Enjoy. -- TZ)

So I live in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, China, which is 50 miles inland from Shanghai. For some reason the Jiangsu Dragons (normally play in a city 2 hours away called Nanjing) decided to play their playoff games in Suzhou. Of course myself and my friend Chico (who is called that because he went to Chico) got tickets and last Friday and Sunday night went to games 1 and 2 of a best-of-five, conference finals series.

A few thing of note:

1.  Our stadium is in the parking lot of a Carrefour (basically Wal-Mart) shopping center and has no parking, luckily we took the bus.
2.  The stadium seats about 7 thousand, it was snowing outside and about 6 thousand people were there, or about 5,812 more people than at a Sac State basketball game.
3.  No team apperal is sold at the game, no food, no drinks, only warm tea in plastic cups for 60 cents.  We brought beer in with no problems.
4.  The other team is from the way north of China, basically Siberia, and for some reason they have NBA veteran, former King, and relative of Ralph, Jamal Sampson.
5.  Jamal DOESN'T start, gets about 20 minutes a game and splits time with a Nigerian guy who's name I can't pronounce or remember.
6.  Jamal and the Nigerian got TORCHED by a Chinese dude on our team for 29 points and 15 rebounds.  The guy is a legit 7 footer, 22 years old, soft hands, descent low post moves and basically the Chinese Vlade.
7.  In the second quarter the Nigerian guy got into a shoving match with Ch. Vlade and Jamal jumped off the bench, ran across the court and punch/shoved Vlade.  The crowd went nuts and started throwing things onto the court as Jamal, the Nigerian and Vlade shouted at eachother.
8.  Jamal DIDN'T get ejected, suspended, a tech, or even a personal foul called on him.  He was just asked to return to the bench after he calmed down.
9.  There were some busch-league doctors in lab coats sitting next to the court all game (sort of like our ambulence at a football game) and some busch-lite league cheerleaders lining the court.  When the game ended the doctors and the cheerleaders ran to Sampson and the Nigerian asking for autographs.
10.  After the game I walked onto the court and into the locker room with a friend.  She started talking to Sampson and told him she was going back to the US next week to visit.  He asked her for a key chain.
11.  While wandering through the locker room area I ran into the cheerleaders.  I talked to one pretty solid looking one for a while and asked her for her number.  She said she was in high school. Yikes.
12.  Game 4 is tonight in Siberia, if we win to tie the series I'll be at game 5 Sunday night.