After celebrity stay in China, James hopes to be rising star with Mavericks

When Bernard James got off the airplane in Shanghai, China, about two months ago to play basketball for the Shanghai Sharks, he thought this was going to be nothing more than a long flight to a faraway destination.

Little did James know what was about to happen once he departed the airplane.

“When I got off the plane at the airport it was a crowd of 300 people just waiting,” James said of an impromptu celebration in his honor. “I was like, ‘What the heck is going on?’

“I had no clue they even knew who I was over there, but they know everybody, they know everything about every player in the NBA over there. They’re crazy about basketball.”

In getting treated in China as though he was the second coming of Michael Jordan, James said no one with the Sharks knew that a crowd would be meeting him at the airport. The 6-foot-10, 235-pound center/power forward didn’t know his minor celebrity status in the states had increased exponentially abroad.

“Any NBA player, they know everything, they know your history, they know where you went to college, they’re just much bigger fans,” James said. “Culturally, they’re a lot bigger fans than we are as Americans.

“It’s almost like an abstract idea seeing these NBA players on TV, and then you actually get one over here. It’s just like a big deal to them.”

While James was a big deal in China, he’s also a big deal in North Texas in the eyes of the Dallas Mavericks.

With center Tyson Chandler missing Wednesday’s game against the Utah Jazz due to a sprained left ankle, the Mavs were in dire need of some assistance in the middle.

“He had some points, he made some free throws, he had a big block down the stretch,” coach Rick Carlisle said. “It’s pretty clear to me that after having this experience overseas where he’s one of the main players, he’s got a different kind of air about him.

“He’s a lot more confident player and we need him. He’s going to play minutes for us.”

The Mavs had been trying to sign James for a few days, and were waiting on the necessary paperwork from FIBA, basketball’s governing body. Carlisle said that paperwork arrived and was signed about a minute before Wednesday’s shootaround, which James participated in.

Carlisle added that assistant general manager Keith Grant “gets the game ball for that because he really worked hard to get that thing through.”

James played his first two NBA seasons with the Mavs, but was released at the end of the 2014 training camp. However, it was clear that he still knew the lion’s share of the Mavs’ playbook by how he performed against the Jazz.

“He was great,” point guard J.J. Barea said. “He played with a lot of energy, he made defensive blocks out there. He knows the game, so it was easy for him to come back.”

James may be back in the states, but he’ll always have a special place in his heart for the fans in China.

“It wasn’t bad at all,” he said. “It was definitely a culture experience. I was able to get in there and play big minutes and get my rhythm back. I was able to get in a habit of what it felt like to be relied on again.”

With Chandler out, the Mavs (36-19) will rely on James a lot. And he’ll probably receive 20-plus minutes again in the Mavs’ next game, Feb. 19 at Oklahoma City.

“He’s athletic, he’s long and he’s strong,” forward Chandler Parsons said. “He knows his role, so I think he can be a big plus for us.”

This story was originally published February 12, 2015 at 7:05 PM with the headline "After celebrity stay in China, James hopes to be rising star with Mavericks."