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Why Do Asians Love Basketball So Much?
People always want what they cannot have.
When I was younger, I used to joke that I loved basketball, as a Chinese kid, because it represented everything I wasn’t. I bought into all the negative stereotypes about Asians. While we may have been seen as smart and really good at math, we were short. We were not athletic. And being a professional basketball player was everything we could not have.
I didn’t grow to be taller than 5 feet until I was in the eighth grade. But there was no cultural or athletic figure that drew my passion and obsession more than Allen Iverson.
Allen Iverson (A.I.) was the Philadelphia 76ers star who was barely six foot tall, and had somehow willed his team to the NBA finals. Iverson played every game like his last, and won through sheer skill and willpower: he put his body on the line on every play, colliding with defenders 7 feet tall. He had a slick crossover that broke defenders’ ankles. He had a crazy midrange jump shot.
If he could make it to the NBA Finals against the likes of Kobe and Shaq, maybe someone like me could too.
He defied the odds and played like an underdog, and to the naked eye, A.I. seemed to win through sheer hard work…
