The World's Biggest Joe Johnson Fan Lives in China, and He Still Believes

Yonsan Johnson had his chance to bail. Many chances, actually, with the latest being this upcoming NBA season, in which Joe Johnson, the seven-time NBA All-Star, will once again be the best player on a boring and mediocre Brooklyn Nets team. Yonsan—also known as Zhu Yan-Qing, and formerly known as Yonsan Uranus—is a 29-year-old electrical engineer living in China's Xi'an province, and he's probably the biggest Joe Johnson fan in the world. He is not changing his mind about any of it.

There are reasons why a person might be a Joe Johnson fan, just as there are reasons why the Atlanta Hawks signed Johnson to a six-year, $123.7 million contract back in 2010—a deal that means Johnson will make $24,894,863 this season, more than any NBA player besides Kobe Bryant. Johnson is a very good player, but he will never be confused with Kobe outside of payroll. Bryant has his rings; Johnson has led his team into the playoffs eight straight times—five with Atlanta, three with Brooklyn—without ever pushing past the second round. This year's Nets are not expected to make the playoffs at all. But Johnson has Yonsan—and Yonsan's 1,557-member Chinese Joe Johnson Fan Club—and it seems likely he always will.

It has been this way ever since 2009, when Yonsan, then a young soldier, first discovered an issue of Dime magazine lying in his barracks. On the cover, staring back at him with the eyes of a warrior, was Johnson. After reading the article, Yonsan told me when I first reported his story for VICE, he came to revere Johnson's quiet approach, his homebody ways, and love for his mother. To Yonsan, Johnson seemed to embody a number of ideals that had long been central to Chinese culture. Also, he seemed like a pretty good basketball player.

From there, Yonsan's Joe Johnson fan club grew like a mighty oak, spreading its limbs into YouTube, email inboxes, amateur Johnson-centric logo design, and a near-unhinged craving for authentic game jerseys. The whole time, Yonsan tried, against all odds and through all avenues, to reach Joe Johnson: mail, Twitter, me (I'm a high school classmate of Johnson's), and apparently at least one video game session with Al Horford.

Never, though, did he succeed—not until October 2014, when worlds at last collided.

The rumbling began with an announcement that Brooklyn would play a preseason game against Sacramento in conjunction with a "Jordan Air Max sneaker event at Beijing Workers Stadium." In an email, Yonsan told me about jockeying through the arena crowd to find a place near the players' locker where he could get his first chance to meet the man dubbed Joe Jesus by his former Nets teammate Kevin Garnett. "So I just waited for Joe," Yonsan wrote. "Maybe for 10 min…"

there came a tall and strong black man. Its Joe!!

I quickly called him: Joe~!

He weaved his hand to me.

The distance of Me and him just 1.5m…

Really nearby.

I cannot believe I met with him like this.

So closed…

So surprise…

So touching…

He was strong, quiet and really cool…

I was supposed to say something…

…

I didnt have the chance to say what I wanted to say anymore…

Actually, I wanted to say: "Hi,Joe… you are my favorite NBA superstar, Welcome to China and hope you will have a great game tonight and hope you enjoy tonight… Wish I can take a photo with you"

Maybe these words can only be the words in my heart…

After he entered in the court. I quickly found the right entrance to get in.

Then I saw he was practicing..

So I took my camera… got a lot of photos…

I got thousands of photos that night,. but during the game was not easy…

its not good to stand up during the game.

During timeouts, Yonsan recalled that most Chinese fans were yelling Garnett's name. He alone yelled Joe's.

he heard me, and showed me his expression.

seemed like he understood its me

The Nets ultimately won the game. Johnson went 1-for-5 in shooting, and had three rebounds, three steals, and eight assists. No game recaps made mention of the engineer who believed he saw greatness that night, who still believes a year later, despite all the smoke pouring from under the hood of his favorite NBA player. Sadder still, Johnson and his biggest fan never got closer than that one pregame moment. "Unfortunately," Yonsan told me via email, "we didn't have chance to talk or take a selfie."

Joe Johnson logged his lowest scoring average in a decade last year. In recent weeks, albeit in the irrelevance of the NBA preseason, he scored five points against a Euroleague team and mock-conducted fans in a chant riffing off a statement that, in turn, had mocked the notion of Brooklyn having any hope to contend this year.

Still, Yonsan stays the course, refusing to jump from the bandwagon he's spent years building. "I will always support Joe Johnson," he told me. "This can never be changed."

He continued:

He still can make the miracle.

his shot, his attitude and his stability… he is still that IsoJoe.

maybe only thing I dont like is he got tattoos.

I used to think he should not have tattoos would be the best. but its very cool.