THE NBA swept into Shanghai over the weekend, demonstrating in a 3-day love fest how basketball has become an ever more-powerful draw in China.

Sunday afternoon’s exhibition game between the Sacramento Kings and Brooklyn Nets drew a wildly enthusiastic, sellout crowd to Mercedes-Benz Arena that summoned the atmosphere of a playoff game, not a pre-season affair that doesn’t even count.

Fans came wearing caps and jerseys from their favorite teams and cheered loudly at seemingly every opportunity. They demonstrated their knowledge of the game, saving their biggest cheers during pre-game introductions for veteran stars Kevin Garnett and Deron Williams on the Brooklyn side, and younger stars Rudy Gay and DeMarcus Cousins for the Kings.

“I love basketball and I support the NBA,” said Kay Chen of Shanghai, who said she was attending the first NBA game of her life. “I think it’s very exciting that they’re here.”

For the record, the Nets won a closely matched game, 97-95, but that was really beyond the point. The National Basketball Association continues to expand beyond North American shores, importing scores of players from Europe and South America, plus a few from Asia, and gaining legions of fans worldwide.

Going forward, China is a big part of the plan, and it is already the NBA’s biggest overseas market. Simple demographics make the reason obvious.

“More people play basketball here than in the United States,” Vivek Ranadive, the new principal owner of the Kings, told Shanghai Daily just after the game, perhaps only slightly exaggerating the reported 300 million players in China. “It’s very much modeled after NBA 3.0. This is one of the most important markets. It’s just a huge honor for the teams and our fans to represent the NBA, and we love to come out here.”

In an interview on Friday, Chris Granger, team president of the Kings, praised Shanghai as “the perfect place for us to be right now in China.”

“I think Shanghai is my favorite city in the world,” he said. “I love the energy, the international flavor.”

The game was already popular in China but really took off when Yao Ming became a star for the Houston Rockets in 2002. Yao, a Shanghai native, was in attendance at Sunday’s game which marked the 17th NBA game played on Chinese soil.

The Nets and Kings meet again tonight at the MasterCard Center in Beijing, capping the teams’ week in China.

Yao retired in 2011 but excitement for basketball just keeps rising in sports-mad China. Carrying the Chinese banner now is Taiwan-born Jeremy Lin, who recently signed a contract with the Los Angeles Lakers and is under the tutelage of new teammate Kobe Bryant.

Meanwhile, more and more people are tuning in and logging in. NBA.com has a fully Chinese website that gets multiple billions of page views each year, and it makes full use of social media such as WeChat. NBA games are shown five times a week on national broadcaster CCTV-5, while regional stations such as BesTV, Beijing TV, Shanghai Media Group and Guangdong TV also regularly air games.

Internet portals Sina and Tencent stream games live, opening a digital platform that has viewership growing rapidly among the more than 600 million Chinese who use the Internet.

NBA China was formed years ago, and through it the league markets its players and merchandising and secures TV rights. Before Sunday’s game, fans thronged an NBA store selling jerseys for 599 yuan (US$98), along with NBA-themed games and photo shoots set up just outside the arena.

Some posed with young Chinese models clad in skimpy NBA attire, who were there to take pictures with fans. Booths also provided patrons the opportunity to shoot baskets on electronic machines and play other games. The entertainment area was overrun with fans a full 90 minutes before tip-off.

Two nights earlier, the two teams held a free Fan Appreciation Night that drew another full house to the 18,000-seat arena, which was built for the World Expo 2010 Shanghai and resembles a huge flying saucer on a pedestal.

That impressed Kings’ shooting guard Ben McLemore, who told Shanghai Daily before Sunday’s game: “The fans here are incredible, and the game is so big. Fan Appreciation Night was crazy. It was just something for us to interact with the fans, not even a game, and it was amazing to have so many come out just for that.”

The NBA put forth its full regiment for the China trip. Both teams’ cheerleading squads came to China for the game and other events, helping whip up the fans’ enthusiasm, as did Slamson, the Kings’ lion-suited mascot. The game was broadcast live in the US on NBA TV.

Ranadive is the driving force behind his so-called NBA 3.0, which was best explained by Granger at a news conference in Shanghai on Friday morning.

“That represents three different vectors that we try to parlay into growing our business,” he said. “One is using technology to enhance the fan experience. Two is becoming more of a global brand and representing what we think of as the best of Sacramento or the best of northern California on a more global stage. And three is using our celebrity and our stature ... to help make the world a better place.”

To that end, on Saturday the team went to Ziluolan Migrant School in suburban Pudong as part of the league’s “NBA Cares” program. There they dedicated a reading, learning and recreation center and made a big impact on
the children there.

Players played ping pong with school kids and ran a skills clinic for boys and girls. Besides the current players, NBA legends, including former Kings Mitch Ritchmond, Vlade Divac and Peja Stojakovic lent a hand.

“This is the very embodiment of NBA 3.0,” Ranadive said at the school event. “It’s about making a difference in communities.

“I came from a poor country, myself,” he said. “I was born in India, and to be able to come here and see these kids of migrant workers, it’s just a huge privilege, a huge honor. It’s the most humbling thing that we’ve done on this trip.”

Among Ranadive’s prime goals in purchasing the Kings was that the game can be further globalized and that technology can be a big part of that effort. He would like to expand the game to his native India. But for now it’s China that can’t get enough of the NBA, and the feeling is mutual.