China's head basketball coach Jonas Kazlauskas may have hammered
the country's domestic league for its lack of defense, but the
sport's authorities believe the criticism is unfair.
The league, the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA), has for
the last 12 years been cultivating talent in a bid to produce more
players of the calibre of Yao Ming, starting centre for the Houston
Rockets in the NBA.
"Every time I look at the league, I feel it is the foundation of
the sport in the country," said Li Yuanwei, director of the
Basketball Administrative Centre.
"It brings kids to basketball courts and turns them into stars.
We witness their growth, Yao, Yi Jianlian and those like Zhu Fangyu
and Tang Zhengdong. We cheer for them at home and in international
competitions. I would say the league is like the engine of our hoop
system. Everything starts from it."
China's hoopsters underlined their regional dominance with a 6th
gold at the Doha Asian Games in December, and the team was made up
entirely of CBA stars with the exception of Sun Yue, who plays for
Beijing Aoshen in the American Basketball Association.
Although it produced the "Walking Great Wall" of Yao, Wang
Zhizhi and Bateer, the league has received strong criticism for its
poor quality defense, boring schedule and shortage of home
stars.
National team head coach Kazlauskas has publicly expressed his
dissatisfaction with the league and blamed the clubs for his
players' bad habits.
"Whenever the players are training for the national team, I try
to change their approach to defense. But in the clubs, they have to
play a different style of basketball. Sometimes in the clubs, the
coaches tell them to relax on defence in order to save energy. But
in modern basketball, it is important for you to give your all when
playing defence.
"I know people have high expectations of the team, me too, but
we only have what we have from the domestic league. It's very hard
to pick up the talented players the team needs."
Adding salt to the wounds, the league cut over 100 matches this
season to give more time to national team players for international
tournaments.
The league was spilt into two stages to allow a break for the
Asian Games. The second stage, which started late December, has
seen a sharp fall in ticket sales.
Fans complain that the league is uncompetitive and inconsistent,
and sponsors are unhappy about the lack of coverage.
The national team's success at the Asian Games was perfectly
timed to put a stop to the criticism.
Equipped with quick transition and tough defence, the young
players from the CBA won every match. They thrashed arch-rivals
South Korea 68-52 in the quarterfinals, a reverse of four years ago
in Busan when they lost to the Koreans in the final with Yao in the
line-up.
"This time we are a different team, our players are getting
stronger all the time through the competition in the national
league. Without Yao, we still have the best young players in Asia,"
said Hu Jiashi, vice director of the CBA.
The pick of the talent is 19-year-old Yi Jianlian, hailed by
some as the "next Yao Ming".
The 2.13-metre forward from Guangdong is highly rated by US
scouts, and has announced his entry into November's 2007 NBA
Draft.
Leading draft website NBADraft.net predicts the teenager will be
picked in 11th position next year in a strong group, while other
experts rank him as high as fourth.
He averaged 16.7 points in Doha, behind only former NBA player
Wang Zhizhi, and led the team in rebounding (10.3). This was a big
improvement on the Asian Championships last year when he struggled
to 6.9 points and 5.7 rebounds.
Despite China's lackluster showing at last summer's world
championships in which the team finished 11th, Yi won praise from
US coach Mike Krzyzewski, a man famed for recognizing and bringing
through young basketball talent at prestigious Duke University.
"The kid should be in the NBA. He'd be a lottery pick. That kid
is really good," Krzyzewski said. "He'd probably be starting for
some teams in the league. The kid's just got it."
His CBA statistics show his year-on-year progress in the league.
Yi averaged 5 points and 3.3 rebounds in his rookie 2002-2003
season, but now he tops his team with 20.5 points and 9.6
rebounds.
He led his native province's Guangdong Tigers to three
consecutive CBA titles last season, recording 20 double-doubles in
regular season and topping the 30-point mark eight times, including
a 43-point performance in the regular season finale.
Growing alongside Yi include players like Zhu Fangyu, who
started from 2.1 points per game five years ago to 20.8 last
season, and Tang Zhengdong, who has gone from 12 points per game in
2000 to 23.
"The CBA is the foundation of my improvement," said Yi. "I can
see my progress every time I step onto the court, from a rookie to
the team's mainstay. I think the CBA is where it started."
Following the success of the NBA in China, the CBA launched a
ten-year development plan in 2004 in a bid to better cultivate
young talent.
The NBA network started to broadcast the CBA finals in 2005 and
tickets were reportedly sold out during last season's finals
between Bayi Rockets and Guangdong Hongyuan. Ticket prices,
normally 200 yuan ($25), rose to 3,000 yuan ($380) on the black
market.
According to stats released by a league official, a total of 315
million people watched CBA games on television last season. The
average audience was 79.15 percent that figure, approximately 250
million people.
In addition, last month the governing body enacted its first
regulations to deal with age fraud concerning young players.
In a sign of the growing commercialism of the league, military
basketball team Bayi Rockets, the only state-owned team in the
league, last month signed a 10-year contract with a local company
and set up the Bayi Fubang Rockets club.
"We will work hard to make it better than ever," said Li. "The
CBA is a fundamental factor in our preparations for the Beijing
Olympics. I believe it is able to give us what we want."
(China Daily January 11, 2007)