Operation Yao Ming

The riveting story behind NBA giant Yao Ming, the ruthless Chinese sports machine that created him, and the East-West struggle over ChinaÂ's most famous son.

The NBAÂ's 7Â'6“ All-Star Yao Ming has changed the face of basketball, revitalizing a league desperate for a new hero while becoming a multimillionaire pitchman for Reebok and McDonaldÂ's. But his journey to America—like that of his forgotten foil, 7Â'1“ Wang Zhizhi—began long before he set foot on the worldÂ's brightest athletic stage.

Operation Yao Ming opens with the story of the two boysÂ' parents, basketball players brought together by Chinese officials intent on creating a generation of athletes who could bring glory to their resurgent motherland. Their children would have no more freedom to choose their fates. By age thirteen, Yao was pulled out of sports school to join the Shanghai Sharks pro team, following in the footsteps of Wang, then the star of the PeopleÂ's Liberation Army team. Rumors of the pair of Chinese giants soon attracted the NBA and American sports companies, all eager to tap a market of 1.3 billion consumers.

In suspenseful scenes, journalist Brook Larmer details the backroom maneuverings that brought ChinaÂ's first players to the NBA. Drawing on years of firsthand reporting, Larmer uncovers the disturbing truth behind ChinaÂ's drive to produce Olympic champions, while also taking readers behind the scenes of AmericaÂ's multibillion-dollar sports empire. Caught in the middle are two young men—one will become a mega-rich superstar and hero to millions, the other a struggling athlete rejected by his homeland yet lost in America.