2025-26 Shanghai Sharks
103 · 2026-04-10 · easy
Who or what is this China, and why is it kicking everyone's ass? They poisoned everyone's brain with Tiktok, destroyed every Silicon Valley AI firm with Deepseek, and they either manufactured the smartphone you're reading this on or installed spyware on it. If you've ever sent anyone a dick pic, China has your penis in a database; sorry, you're just going to have to deal with it. I live in Europe, so I get to ride around in their electric cars all the time – every single taxi in my city is a BYD – and it feels just like riding on a cartoon cloud. This is a transcendent experience no statesider will likely ever have, and if Chinese automobiles were legal in the U.S. they would all be doing autopilot donuts in everybody's front yard anyway. How can I buy American when America doesn't make anything anymore? At least half of the items in my house came from a local "kinetski", which is basically a three-story Temu with a copy of The Thoughts of Xi Jinping behind the counter. Anyway, basketball. Sports metaphors work two ways: you can describe a certain situation with game terminology, and sometimes the game itself can illustrate a point better than words can. This past Wednesday, late in the first quarter of a late-season Chinese Basketball Association game, power forward Darius Bazley checked in for Ningbo against Shanghai. If that name sounds familiar, it should: he was a prep-to-pro first rounder in 2019, played three seasons in OKC right before the dynasty started. Beasley was averaging 10 and 6 before his knees started giving out, and then, well, you know how it goes. The Ningbo Rockets (19-17, 10th place in the CBA) were once the Bayi Rockets, the official basket club of the Chinese military, and they're now owned by weird oligarchs — an identical path to that of CSKA Moscow. That's not the metaphor I was talking about, but file that away. With the Sharks (32-4, 1st place) up by double digits and cruising towards a 119-97 victory, Bazley inbounded to fellow overpriced import Zavier Simpson after a made three-pointer. But both were sleepwalking, and Shanghai's Zhang Zhenlin – a 6-10 Chinese national, formerly trained in the American basketball system under the name Kevin – nabbed the sloppy pass, backed up, and stroked an uncontested three. Six points in two seconds! Instead of an ensuing inbound, Bazley intentionally committed another turnover, walked off the court in a huff, then shoved a Chinese teammate who tried to calm him down. That's it, that's the tweet. Following the game, the Ningbo Rockets voided Bazley's contract with immediate effect. "Own goal" is a footsoccer term, and the United States will never be that kind of nation, and "repeatedly kicking yourself in the nuts" more accurately describes what's going on in the world. Because, well, you know how it goes.
