Gilbert in the New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/sports/basketball/17arenas.html?ref=sports

Jay-Z reference and shooting one-handed 3s. I'll take it.

MANILA — For N.B.A. players making their first visit to the Philippines, the adoration of fans can be flattering and startling.

“They make you feel like you’re a god,” said Gilbert Arenas, who recently spent three days promoting his new line of sneakers. “When my N.B.A. career is done, I have to play here one year just to feel that.”

Arenas, 26, sometimes jokes that being the Washington Wizards’ franchise player makes him “the black president.” Sure enough, this tour gave him a taste of presidential life.

When he landed at Ninoy Aquino International Airport, Arenas was met by a horde of television and newspaper videographers and photographers who followed him throughout his three days in Manila. Arenas said that he was so taken aback by the size and opulence of his presidential suite at the Peninsula Manila Hotel that he took pictures to prove he stayed there.

To visit Adidas stores, he traveled in a motorcade of dark sport utility vehicles with an escort of three police motorcycles. Before he arrived at each site, bomb-sniffing dogs swept the areas, and brawny Adidas-clad security guards wearing Secret Service-style earpieces set up barricades to corral the fans who had crowded mall walkways to catch a glimpse of him. (The sportswear company is one of Arenas’s sponsors.)

“It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before, and I’ve seen crazy fans all over the world,” Arenas wrote on his NBA.com blog. He also offered this advice to his fellow N.B.A. players: “If you’re having a bad day or you’re having a bad career, go to Manila. They’ll bring your spirits up.”

This country’s love of basketball may surprise the players, but it is well known to sportswear companies, which have been sending American stars to Manila for years. Despite its small population and weak economy compared with other Asian markets like China, India and Japan, the Philippines consistently cracks the top four in rankings of Asian basketball sales for Adidas, according to Joey Singian, the managing director of Adidas Philippines.

The sneaker companies reward the country for such dedicated consumption by sending their star endorsers to visit. Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers and Tracy McGrady of the Houston Rockets have been to Manila twice in the past 10 years, and it is rare for an N.B.A. off-season to pass without at least one stopover by a star player. That visit is usually followed by a jump in sales of that player’s signature merchandise, and of basketball products in general, Singian said.

Even non-sportswear companies try to tap the interest here. They sponsor teams in the Philippine Basketball Association and give them corporate-themed names, like the Magnolia Beverage Masters and Santa Lucia Realtors.

The way fans climbed over one another during the Fourth of July weekend to touch Arenas’s hand was reminiscent of a papal visit. Some went in for high-fives, grabbed his hand and would not let go until security guards pried away their fingers.

Reynar Monteclaro, a 21-year-old college graduate from Zamboanga del Norte on the southern island of Mindanao, howled after Arenas signed his plush toy basketball. Monteclaro said he made the cross-country journey to Manila just to see Arenas.

During other moments of Arenas’s tour, his reception was more like that of a pop star. At an exhibition in the atrium of a mall in Quezon City, Adidas set up bleachers and a half court at which Arenas gave interviews and shot one-handed 3-pointers. More than 1,000 spectators watched from the ground floor and looked down from walkways on the upper levels.

“I feel like Jay-Z in the States,” Arenas told the crowd. “I don’t get this kind of love in Washington.”