NBA Ox Team Says Happy Chinese New Year

We always hear that the Rockets, and now the Nets, are big in China because they've got Chinese nationals on their respective rosters. During the Olympics, we discovered that said great country has unconditional love for Kobe Bryant, which to most Americans sounds about as plausible as cats flying airliners. But apparently, those wily Dallas Mavericks are pretty big, too. In the above poster from some Chinese basketball mag, they offer their Year of the Ox salutations.

A translation, courtesy of this guy's friend ([sic] like crazy, added some puncuation):

The characters next to NBA: Red character: OX, Next character: team, Next three characters: Wishes you a Happy New Year. Which means: NBA OX team Wishes you a Happy New Year...so maybe this is wrong and it is suppose to read Team NBA wishes you a Happy New Year in the year of the OX.

5 LETTERS under that: Calf (first two characters) Welcomes (third character) The Year of the OX(last two characters). So I guess: The Mavericks are known as the Calves in China: "The Mavericks Welcomes the Year of the OX. Stackhouse's hat: fu = Good Fortune or Happiness but since the character is upside down it means Good fortune or happiness is already here or its coming. Terry's banner: Gong He Xin Xi = Happy New Years; Kidd's banner: Niu Nian Da Ji = Prosperity in the year of the OX.

For my money, this smokes those Chinese outlaw drawings that lit up the interwebs on a dark, dark August morning in 2007.

(h/t Dallas Basketball.)

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.