Harris in China for Athens Olympics

American basketball coach Del Harris was mobbed by Chinese media on Sunday when he arrived in the country to begin preparing NBA standout Yao Ming and the national team for the upcoming Athens Olympic Games.

Harris will join assistant coach Jonas Kazlauskas of Lithuania as the first foreigners to pilot a major Chinese team to the Olympic Games.

NBA Harris in China for Athens Olympics

"I'll see the team play tomorrow night," Harris said of a match the national team will play against a group of Australian All-Stars Team in Jinjiang, eastern Jiangxi Province.

"I won't coach; I will observe them for a little bit. After they play these games, I'll start working out with them in practices.

"I think the team has made very good progress in the few months that they have been working. I've been watching the videos they have been sending me and the coaches have done a really good job with the team. I've seen improvement with the individuals and in their team play."

Harris and Kazlauskas have been charged with elevating China to the world elite level, and dependent on their results at Athens they could stay on with the national side until 2008 when Beijing plays hosts to the Olympics.

Yao, the Houston Rockets' standout centre, arrived in China last week following his second All-Star season in the NBA and is expected to suit up with the national team after the five-game series against the Australians.

So far the two teams have played three games with Australian winning the first two.

Harris, who just completed the NBA season as an assistant coach with the Dallas Mavericks, dazzled the waiting journalists by speaking a smattering of Chinese and assured them he wasn't a total stranger to the Chinese way of life.

"Well I know something about China; I have a master's degree in history, so I know something about the history of the world," Harris said.

China's basketball mad media has questioned the wisdom of hiring Western coaches to lead the national team, with many doubting that Chinese players can adapt to a foreign style of coaching and playing.

Both Harris and Kazlauskas have dismissed such concerns, saying the game is global and basketball is a culture unto itself.

"I have six years experience coaching other countries, the players of course will have some problems understanding, but in basketball there is only one language," Kazlauskas said earlier.

"There is not so much of a difference between Chinese basketball and the basketball played around the world. Basketball is not divided by national boundaries."