Facing the lockout J.R. Smith decided that he was not risking missing a season of getting paid to play basketball. Joining his teammate Wilson Chandler, in October J.R. chose to take his talents to the Far East by signing a deal with the Zhejiang Chouzhou.
Smith is learning though that the cultures may as well be two different worlds. Here in America we can entertain and share our lives through social media as often as we want, but in China that is not the case. J.R. tried to do what most athletes have been doing during the lockout and take to twitter. Only one problem; twitter is blocked in China. Oh yeah, so is Skype and Youtube.
Being the kind of man that will not be deterred from his passion, Smith found a way around the ban and shot off this tweet from his blackberry,
“Dear China, the fact that u won’t let me work my Skype on my desktop or twitter is really pissing me off.” Then another one: “Not even YouTube wow this is ass!”
Smith is being regarded as the best player in his Chinese league and he is receiving superstar treatment from the team. Honestly, I think Smith thought he was one of the best players in the NBA over the past years. The guy has no shortage of confidence.
He’s been a prolific scorer in the NBA at times registering a 45 point game in 2009. Smith also fell just one three pointer away from tying the NBA record of 3s made in a game by dropping in eleven of them.
His new goal? He wants a triple double every night. One would also have to think that he has his eyes on the Chinese record of 71 points in a game.