Asia becomes a player in the NBA

The NBA sends teams to China for preseason games every October, and its biggest stars independently travel across Asia every summer on promotional tours organized by their shoe and apparel sponsors.

Now China and Asia appear headed here to the NBA as well.

Shanghai sports marketer Lizhang "John" Jiang became the first Chinese investor in an NBA team when he bought a 5 percent stake in the Timberwolves from owner Glen Taylor in June 2016. Now the former longtime NBA Board of Governors chairman, Taylor has his franchise firmly aimed at exporting its brand to a country of 1.4 billion people, a growing number of them thirsty NBA fans.

Chinese e-commerce behemoth Alibaba Group co-founder Joseph Tsai — a Taiwanese-born, U.S.-educated billionaire — reached an agreement late last month to buy 49 percent of the Brooklyn Nets from Russian owner Mikhail Prokhorov. He did so with the option — but not the obligation, the New York Times reported — to buy controlling interest by 2021.

The Wolves have decided to market a remade team with a simple three-word slogan: All Eyes North.

The NBA's increasingly could be All Eyes East.

When former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer bought the Los Angeles Clippers for $2 billion in 2014, it was believed to be a uniquely exorbitant price. Since then, the Houston Rockets have sold to a local businessman for $2.2 billion, and Tsai's deal to buy the Nets' majority interest later is locked in at $2.3 billion now.

At those numbers, a Timberwolves franchise for which Taylor paid $88.5 million in 1994 could approach a $1 billion price tag, possibly even more.

Such inflation in NBA franchise valuations is pricing out mega-millionaires and perhaps even the mere billionaire going forth.

And just where is that kind of money? Look east.

According to a new report by Swiss banking UBS Group AG and global consulting/accounting firm PwC, billionaire wealth rose by 17 percent to $6 trillion in 2016, and for the first time ever, there are more billionaires in Asia than in the United States. The report estimated Asian billionaires' total wealth could surpass that of U.S. billionaires in four years.

Many of the richest are investing in the arts and sports franchises. In particular, executives from Chinese companies have spent heavily to acquire European soccer teams, companies that handle international broadcast and media rights, and now potentially an NBA team, according to the New York Times.

In turn, the NBA — and the Wolves, in particular — clearly has its collective eye on China as well.

Just last week, the Wolves announced another affiliation: an agreement with a Shanghai-based organization that will bring Chinese youth players and coaches to Minneapolis to attend games and participate in camps. It's intended to grow the game — and the Wolves' brand — in China, where the team has a minority owner, a growing Weibo website audience and as of last season a corporate partner in Chinese electronics company TCL.

The Wolves also played Golden State in two preseason games in China last month. The NBA already plays regular-season games in Mexico and England. Such games in China might not be all that far off.

Ranked by Forbes magazine the 350th-richest American with an estimated worth of $2.3 billion, Taylor in 2015 pursued selling 30 percent of the team with the intention of eventually selling majority interest. But he reconsidered and recommitted himself, hiring Tom Thibodeau to build his team around Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins instead.

Taylor, 76, recently said he has no intention of selling a chunk or all of his team any time soon. He also owns the Star Tribune.

Taylor owns a controlling 70-plus percent of the team, New York City real estate developer Meyer Orbach owns 16 percent, Jiang 5 percent, and other minority investors own the rest while franchise prices spiral upward.

"I'm happy the way things are now, I want to play this through," Taylor said. "I want to have a really good team and see what we can do."

NBA SHORT TAKES

• Part-time rapper and full-time clutch shooter, Portland's Damian Lillard added to his growing collection of winning shots with Thursday's step-back three over L.A. Laker Brandon Ingram's long reach. Lillard pointed to an imaginary watch on his wrist —end of game is his time, get it? — in celebration one night after he missed a driving shot in an overtime loss at Utah. "Usually after that first miss, the next time it always goes in my favor," he said afterward. "Funny it happened the next night."

• The Wolves last week in New Orleans faced their former forward Dante Cunningham, whom they pursued aggressively as a free agent. "There were a few teams that did that," Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry said about Cunningham's courtships. "He's kind of a glue guy for us. He's a real tough, hard-nosed guy who competes at the highest level, so, yeah, we wanted him back."

• Lynx star Lindsay Whalen rocked a vintage Kevin Garnett Timberwolves jersey when she and past and present WNBA stars Sue Bird and Cynthia Cooper appeared with him on his TNT "Area 21" segments. It was a special edition "Ladies Night" presented during Thursday's NBA coverage. They analyzed a hypothetical series between Cooper's Houston Comets championship teams from the league's formative years two decades ago and Whalen's four-time champion Lynx. Whalen also plugged her oddly creepy Instagram character, Gentry, and spoke about someday transitioning from point guard to a coaching career. "It's definitely something I'm interested in," she said. "Now whether it happens, I don't know. It's one of those things where you see what happens when you're done [playing]."

THE WOLVES' WEEK AHEAD

Sunday: 7 p.m. vs. Charlotte (FSN). Wednesday: 9:30 p.m. at Golden State (FSN/ESPN). Saturday: 8 p.m. at Phoenix (FSN Plus)

Player to watch: Kevin Durant, Golden State Durant or Steph Curry — it's a pick 'em — but let's go big when the rest of the NBA is going small and take Durant, whose shooting range, resolve and even defense have taken an already great team to another level.

Voices "Thibs is never happy. Don't write that. That's fake news." — Center Karl-Anthony Towns, refuting a rumor that coach Tom Thibodeau just might have been pleased with the Wolves' first five victories by six points or fewer.

Twitter: @JerryZgoda, E-mail: jzgoda@startribune.com, Blog: startribune.com/wolves