The Xu family: From basketball to the aircraft carrier business
Love of basketball runs deep in the Xu family. At the peak of his playing career in the late 70s, Xu Zengping was the captain of the PLA Guangzhou Military Command team.
Love of basketball runs deep in the Xu family. At the peak of his playing career in the late 70s, Xu Zengping was the captain of the PLA Guangzhou Military Command team, one of the best sides in the country and with strong overseas business connections.
His romance with the sport continued off the court - he met Liu Kexian, the woman he would marry, at a game in Jinan , the Shandong capital, on June 10, 1971. Liu was one of the main forces on the women's national team and played in the same squad as Fang Fengdi, the mother of retired basketball star Yao Ming .
Xu was born in Weifang, Shandong in 1952. After his sports career, he went into business in 1983, marrying Liu a few years later and moving to Hong Kong in 1988 to expand in a range of directions, from catering to property.
The couple have two sons - Adam, aged 21, and Oliver, 18 - who have both inherited their parents' passion for the game, nurturing dreams from a young age of making it to the NBA.
The brothers were born in Queens, New York, and raised in Hong Kong before returning to the US for university. Adam has been on New York University's basketball team for three years, while Oliver is in his first year at Rice University. Both are on full basketball scholarships.
The family is tall: Xu is 1.85 metres, Liu Kexiang is 1.75 metres, Adam is 1.95 metres, while Oliver is 1.88 metres.