Amar’e not ready to go ‘native’ on Chinese trip

New York forward Amar’e Stoudemire has explored and enjoyed  most areas of Chinese culture during his recent trip to Chinese for a large multi-national shoe country famous for its swooshes.

Stoudemire has explored the Great Wall of China, ridden in a rickshaw and even at the Nike Festival of Sports.

Buton exploring all elements of China — namely Chinese street food.

Here’s how Stoudemire described it in a blog post at Amarestoudemire.com:

“Spent my last few days getting the local flavor of the people and culture of Beijing by visiting the Chinese Street Market. I was starving, but there was no way I was messing with these.  They deep fry them here.  I am going to have to pass!”

In particular, Stoudemire wanted nothing to do with the assortment of seahorses, silkworms and scorpions on a stick served up at various places in Beijing.

Something tells me that Stoudemire — like many tourists returning home after an overseas trip — couldn’t wait to savor a Big Mac and some fries as soon as he landed back home.

Earliest Turkish offers too low for Kobe to jump to Besiktas

Several reports are indicating that if the Turkish team Besiktas is really determined to get Kobe Bryant to play for them during the lockout, they will have to add a few more zeroes to his contract offer.

Bryant’s agent Rob Pelinka met with representatives of Besiktas earlier this week. According to Sportando and Alti Sport, the Turkish team’sfor Bryant to accept.

Another meeting is expected b y the end of the week where Besiktas is expected to raise their offer for Bryant to join Deron Williams during the lockout.

Hoops World.com is reporting that Bryant also potentially could play in China in a contract where The deal could pay him up to $10 million for a season, although he would likely have to agree to a contract without an NBA-out clause and it’s doubtful that Bryant would do that.

Bryant has been non-commital about playing overseas during the lockout.

But if he has an inkling that the lockout will be an extended one and other top NBA stars are flocking overseas, I would expect Bryant to join them if he doesn’t personally lead the exodus.