Damon Jones -- international star

[Eric Albert]

Today's Wall Street Journal has a big front-page article on old friend Damon Jones, including two full-color photos.  That's because he's the first NBA player to have a shoe contract with a Chinese company, Li Ning, which is the country's leading domestic athletic-shoe brand.  The NBA now considers China its second-biggest market.

Li Ning worked with the NBA to come up with a list of possible candidates who were available and affordable.  They felt Damon's career (undrafted, played for 10 different NBA teams, finally landed a four-year $16.1-million deal with the Cavaliers a year ago) was a good fit for their slogan, "anything is possible."  (Unsurprisingly, "yiqie jie you keneng" is the one Chinese phrase Damon knows.)

Damon's deal is a good one, and one he knows he'd have no chance of getting from Nike or Adidas.  The contract pays him an annual salary of between $200,000 and $300,000, and offers bonuses tied to personal and team performance, according to people familiar with the deal.  That's peanuts compared to the $100 million that Nike agreed to pay his teammate Lebron James over seven years, but many NBA players get only free gear and minimal money for their sneaker endorsements.

Later this year, a Damon Jones signature shoe will appear.  When Damon wears them for the Cavaliers, he'll be in the unusual position of endorsing a shoe that won't be sold in the U.S.  That's OK, though -- he'll earn royalties on them, a perk typically given only to the NBA's superstars.

On Tuesday, Damon will make his first trip to China, landing in Beijing, where he'll be greeted as a star.  After all, there his face appears on billboards and television, where he recites his Mandarin-language phrase on highlight reels broadcast with NBA games.

I'm happy his hard work has paid off, and I wish him the best.

-- Eric