It’s perfectly doable. You think kids in China care who can throw a football farther? They care about who’s at the top of their class. It’s all just about how we want to structure our priorities.
Chinese kids are basketball fans. The China market is huge for the NBA and the youth there treat these guys like rockstars even more so than what we see in the US. Estimated 300m play basketball in China. While basketball requires a certain amount of mental skill, it’s not rocket science and individual success as you know is largely going to be determined by size which Asian Americans fall below average on.
And yes, I’m sure majority of these kids still do strive to be the top of their class. It’s not ridiculous to think people can be passionate about more than one thing, but to think those kids wouldn’t love to be playing in the NBA if they could is just not accurate.