25. P. League+ Basketball: James Mao (GM, New Taipei Kings)

James Mao (毛加恩) is a former basketball player on Taiwan’s national team. Today, he's general manager of the New Taipei Kings. His roster includes Joseph Lin (brother of Jeremy Lin) and Quincy Davis, a L.A. native who’s now a Taiwanese citizen. For the last 20 years, a fully professional basketball league simply didn’t exist in Taiwan. And as of 2022, there are now two professional leagues at play: The P. League+ (6 teams) and the T-1 League (6 teams).“There's no reason why Taiwan basketball can't be as good as Japan or Korea or China, but it comes down to a lot of people investing a lot of time and energy and also resources to help these players improve,” says James Mao.See New Taipei Kings website for season schedule: https://www.newtaipeikings.com/Today’s host is JR Wu, a former journalist with two decades of media experience in the US and Asia. She has led news bureaus for Reuters and Dow Jones.Support the show by donating on patreon.com/taiwanEPISODE CREDITHost / JR WuProducer / Emily Y. Wu @emilyywuResearch & Editing / Gerald WilliamsA Ghost Island Media production / @ghostislandmewww.ghostisland.mediaSupport the show: https://patreon.com/TaiwanSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.