Unlike His Teammates, Wang Benefits From Trip

A winless trip to Japan wasn’t a washout for every Clipper.

Wang Zhizhi, a backup center from China, enjoyed a tearful reunion last weekend with his parents, Wang Wiejung and Ren Huangzhen, who flew in from Beijing for Saturday’s game against the Seattle SuperSonics at Saitama.

“I miss my mother and my father,” he said Tuesday after practice at L.A. Southwest College. “It’s two years I no see [them], so I’m very happy.”

A two-time Olympian who was China’s leading scorer in the 2000 Games at Sydney, Australia, Wang was a second-round selection of the Dallas Mavericks in the 1999 draft. He became the first NBA player from China when he signed with the Mavericks and played in five games late in the 2000-01 season.

Eighteen months before Yao Ming joined the Houston Rockets, the 7-foot-1 Wang was a hero in his homeland. A son of former players -- his mother had played on the national team -- he had led his club team, the military’s Bayi Rockets, to six consecutive Chinese Basketball Assn. championships.

But in May 2002, after the Mavericks had been eliminated from the playoffs and China summoned Wang to train with the national team for the upcoming World Championships, the NBA club announced that it couldn’t find him.

Weeks later, Wang turned up at the NBA summer league in Long Beach, intent on landing a new contract. Chinese sports officials hinted that they might court-martial Wang, who as a teen had joined the People’s Liberation Army team.

And last fall, within days after he’d signed a three-year, $6-million free-agent contract with the Clippers, Wang was officially kicked off the Chinese national team for “indifference to the interests of the nation.”

According to reports from China, the mainland’s state media began running a vigorous smear campaign against him, labeling Wang an “ungrateful traitor.”

Yao reportedly has lobbied to have Wang reinstated, but Wang has said that he cannot return to China because of his relationship with the People’s Liberation Army, according to a report in the Titan Sports Weekly.

Wang, 26, has adamantly denied reports he planned to defect.

Meanwhile, amid the political turmoil, he has been slow in adjusting to the NBA, more comfortable on the perimeter, it seems, than in the post, despite his size. In 41 games last season, he averaged 10 minutes, 4.4 points and 1.9 rebounds, registering season highs of 26 minutes, 21 points and seven rebounds.

He never left the bench in Thursday’s opener, but with his parents among the crowd in the Saitama Super Arena on Saturday, watching their son play in an NBA game for the first time, he scored two points in five minutes.

The family reunion was bittersweet, seemingly over in a flash.

“I want to go back to China, I want to see my mother and father,” Wang said Tuesday. “But I know it’s very difficult.”

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Elton Brand watched practice with a walking cast on his broken right foot. Fitted for the boot Monday, he is scheduled to wear it for two weeks, after which he probably will be sidelined for another two to four weeks.