“OK, tell me what Chinese have you learned so far,” our own Shaun Robinson asked Kobe Bryant at the U.S. men’s basketball team’s practice the day before the start of the Olympic Games.
“Uh, let me see… Zao, zao sung…,” Kobe replied.
“Ni hao! Ni Hao!”
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Teammate LeBron James was quick to chime in with his knowledge.
So they needed a little help with the language. But after U.S.A’s dismal performance in Athens four years ago, this squad – led by LeBron and Kobe – are in China taking dead aim at just one goal…
“So you promised the gold medal, you promised,” Shaun reminded them. “Now was that was a good idea?”
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“Absolutely, its all about confidence,” LeBron responded. “If you don’t have confidence, what are you here for? People want me to promise the silver? No.”
“Are you gonna bring me back the gold, Kobe,” Shaun asked.
“We better, we better,” the LA Laker replied. “Or else… you know, I’d have to become like an Italian citizen or something and everybody else will have to pick a country.”
Kobe and his teammates aren’t staying at the Olympic Village with the rest of the athletes, but they say that they have a very good reason.
“It was crazy when we went,” Kobe explains. “We couldn’t walk around too much. It was pretty hectic… It was fun to see all those great athletes though.”
“We want to make sure all the other athletes get a lot of sleep,” LeBron explained. “And if we were there, they wouldn’t get too much sleep.”
But how about China? Thousands of years of culture, and a tough men’s basketball team, which the U.S. will square off against on Sunday night, August 10.
And, oh yes, the Night Food Market… where you can chow down on exotic fare, like silk worms and seahorses.
So which member of the team would be willing to bite a head off a scorpion?
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