Billed as the 'first globally integrated camp network', the company has assembled an impressive cast in current NBA player Gilbert Arenas, ex-player Detlef Schrempf, former New York Knicks general manager Scott Layden, NCAA Division One coach Ken Potosnak, in addition to coaches and scouts from Europe and the mainland to instruct their young charges in the finer points of what it takes to become a world-class player.

The camp, the first to be staged in Asia, will be followed by similar camps in Atlanta and Berlin in July. The MVP of Shanghai and possibly others will be sent to the Atlanta camp to gain further experience.

Lawrence Norman, head of global sports marketing, international basketball, for Adidas, said organising the camp had been a major logistic exercise for the company's staff in the region over the past year in selecting players from as far south as Australia and as far north as South Korea to attend.

Chan Yiu-cho and Oliver Chan Chia-chun, both 18, are representing Hong Kong.

'The objective is to offer top young basketball talents a chance to showcase their skills against the best players from across the continents and expose them to world-class coaching and expertise,' said the Amsterdam-based Norman. 'The basketball landscape is changing. It may have started in America but the world is really catching up. In Asia, the basketball market is booming.

'The passion for basketball has dramatically increased over the past three years. It has always been a basketball crazy region. Everybody knows that this market has the most potential over the next five to 10 years to develop some superstars. There is some good talent in this room.'

Indeed. In looking around the gym, the floor is filled with gangly, skinny youths, all of them over 1.8 metres in height with several topping two metres. The mainland players, 32 in all, features 19 at least two metres tall, including two at 2.1 metres. One of the giants, Zhao Hang, a centre from Zhejiang who is only 16, has the scouts excited about the potential talent assembled.

Schrempf, the 14-year NBA veteran who retired three seasons ago, takes a more realistic approach in saying one mini-camp does not make a player.

'If you look at some of the kids we have in camp - they have size and they're pretty athletic. But do they know how to play good basketball yet? No. But can they learn it? It is all up to them.

'They definitely have some size and some good athletes. We are just getting into the basics as far as doing some fundamental stuff - pick and rolls - stuff like that. It is such an outside game here. We are trying to emphasise a bit more to them to get the ball inside and use their size. I think they are not used to that yet.'

Schrempf left his native Germany for high school in the US and went on to an NBA career that included stops with Dallas, Indiana, Seattle and Portland before retiring in 2001. He got started in the Adidas junior camp in Germany in 1994.

'There is a lot of talent here also at this camp,' he said. 'It all depends on what they can take from here and the coaching they receive in the future to improve themselves. You look at Yao Ming. He has improved tremendously in the past three years and he is going to be a force for a long time.'

Arenas, a third-year point guard with the Washington Wizards, said Yao had really made the NBA take notice of the potential source of player talent available in Asia.