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Thanks to the stress fracture in his left foot, Yao Ming hasn't played a minute for the Houston Rockets in the last two months. That doesn't mean, though, that his footprints aren't all over this first-round playoff series with the Jazz.
Quite literally, in fact, with three of Yao's teammates wearing Chinese brand basketball shoes. Forget Nike, Reebok or Adidas. Shane Battier, Chuck Hayes and Luis Scola have six- and seven-figure endorsement deals with Peak, Li-Ning and Anta, respectively.
"While I would love to believe that it's because of my overwhelming charisma and personality," Battier said, "I think it has something to do with Yao."
t is perhaps the greatest tribute
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"Every game," Hayes said, "I get millions of people over there in Asia watching us and supporting me, and people, they see that I'm wearing Li-Ning, so I guess that brings up my fan base even more."
Joking with Scola at Thursday's pregame shootaround, Yao said he wanted a free dinner from his teammates, if not a piece of their contracts. "Are there any shoe company in Argentina interested about me?" Yao asked Scola.
"If Yao wore a Chinese shoe," Battier said, "I don't think there'd be any deals for us over here, so we're happy with Yao and Reebok."
For all the recent news reports about lead contamination in Chinese exports - children's toys, in particular - Battier said his Peaks are as good as any shoe he has worn.
"I toured the factory," Battier said, "and where my shoe was made, it was very well ventilated and well lit and labor practices seemed on the up and up."
The Rockets quietly claim the Chinese shoe contracts give them a potential edge in free agency. The deals are believed to be worth between $300,000 (for a player like Hayes) to $1 million or more for Battier and Steve Francis, who signed with Anta.
An undrafted and undersized forward, Hayes can forever boast that he has his own shoe deal. Li-Ning approached his agent last season and Hayes surprised Yao one day when he showed up to practice wearing the sneakers.
"Yao can vouch for me," Hayes said. "Out of the three shoe companies, mine is the best one. Yao said mine was by far the best one. Over there, I have the best shoe. So I would like to say I'm wearing the Nikes of China."
The three are featured on billboards in the country's biggest cities. Battier said every NBA game broadcast in China goes to break with a Peak commercial starring himself and returns from break with the same commercial a second time.
"I'm much more famous in China than I think I ever was in America, which is kind of cool," Battier said.
Rockets forward Mike Harris, who played in China earlier this season before signing with Houston last month, can attest to how tired he grew of seeing Battier on television.
"The commercial plays over and over," Harris said. "It got kind of repetitive. I got tired of watching it, so I just stopped watching TV. I started watching movies."
While Nikes retail for $100 or more, Chinese sneakers cost about half that, said Wang Meng, who covers the Rockets for Titan Sports, the country's largest sports newspaper. Li-Ning is the most established brand, but Anta is making inroads.
Approximately 70 Rockets games each season are broadcast in China, Wang added, making them China's adopted national team. He said the endorsement deals were far more cost effective than paying to advertise on government-run television.
Li-Ning has deals with NBA players Shaquille O'Neal and Damon Jones while Rockets owner Leslie Alexander reportedly has a $30 million stake in Anta. The biggest question, though, is whether Yao ever will wear a Chinese brand.
"There are a lot of Chinese shoe companies that really want to sign Yao when he becomes a free agent," Wang said. "There will be a fight, just like three, four years ago Nike and Reebok fight so hard to try to sign Yao."