Chinese Basketball Association Imports, 2010/11, Again

March 13th, 2011

Yi Jianlian, Yao Ming, Wang Zhizhi. Not in picture: Sun Yue. Also not in picture: Benjamin Disraeli. The Chinese Basketball Association and its compelling protagonists have a particular level of focus on this website, for reasons which, if you don’t already know them, are about to become extremely obvious. Fringe NBA players like playing in China; the exposure isn’t huge and the standard isn’t great, but the CBA pays very well, and it is unashamed in copying the NBA model of basketball not much imitated around the globe. They’ve changed their style to match up to the NBA game; games are 48 minutes long (like the NBA, and unlike basically every other league in the world), and there’s about three of them a week (unlike most other domestic leagues, which have 1). This teams playing lots of games with less emphasis on practice is a lure to players; after all, as that great philosopher of our time Nate Dogg once said, “playas play on, play on, keep playing on.” Words to live by. (As an aside, did you know Nate Dogg has been hospitalised for the best part of three years after a series of strokes? Me neither.) Each CBA team is allowed to have two import players at any one time, and these players are almost always American. Better still, these players are also almost always players that you’ve heard of, with a great deal of ex-NBA pedigree on there. Perhaps it is now obvious why the league is attractive. There follows a selection of Chinese Basketball Association statistics. All statistics and standings taken from March 12th, 2011. Doing shots with Quincy Douby. 1st place: Xinjiang Flying Tigers (31-1) James Singleton – 31 games, 34.2mpg, 21.6 ppg, 9.9 rpg, 1.2 apg, 1.5 spg, 1.4 bpg, 2.3 TOpg, 73% FG, […]