I humbly disagree with you, Brasky. 7'6 bag once had the largest fan base in China but a good deal of his "fans" were bellwether fans, or to be more accurate, they never even watched basketball until started playing in NBA. Many s only started to watch NBA from 02 onwards to see their yellow hero's performances in NBA, so after 7'6 went down and retired, those "fans" were also evacuated gradually, while most Kobe fans in china are die-hard ones. I know a who was a classmate of mine through all 6 middle-school years, from junior to senior, and loved Kobe so much she would throw a tantrum something right in the classroom if heard someone calling Kobe a "rapist". While everyone else was rooting for the Lockets inside the classroom watching the 04' playoffs on TV (yes we did that stuff a lot back then, and teachers just turned a blind eye to it all), was rooting against the Lockets because their opponents were the Lakers.