The FIBA Basketball World Cup is going on right now. Yes, that is a thing.
US fans might be forgiven for having never heard of this event (you mean the NBA finals?, goes the classic joke). All of the US’s top players either pulled out or rejected the invitation, feeling that it was not a productive use of their energy or worried about injuries that could jeopardize their actual careers.
And yet, with China hosting this year’s championships, the country’s fans are certainly turning out for some international basketball action.
But amid rising tensions between the two countries, how do the fans in China feel about Team USA? Are they just attending the games to jeer their supposed geopolitical rivals or hoping for some schadenfreude from a US defeat? We pulled up at the US vs Turkey game — which Turkey, with its actual top players, nearly won… — to see how Chinese ball fans were feeling on their way in.
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