It was announced on Friday that a US team featuring NBA players
like LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Dwayne Wade will play two
exhibition games in China for the first time in August.
Injured Houston Rockets center Yao Ming is hopeful that he'll
recover in time to join the Chinese team, according to Li Yuanwei,
president of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA).
Doctors have suggested that Yao, who broke his left foot on
April 10 in Utah, not play any games until August 1. Despite his
injuries, Yao joined his teammates in a training session on
Saturday, the first time since returning to China last month.
In the latest six warm-ups in Italy, China only managed to
clinch two wins, beating Venezuela 78-73 and Japan 80-75.
Former NBA player Wang Zhizhi dominated the series while Yao was
out of action. Wang averaged 23 points and 9.8 rebounds and was the
top scorer for China in five games. He netted 44 points in the game
with Japan, which broke the highest scoring record held by Yao, who
scored 39 points in a match against New Zealand at the 2004 Athens
Olympics.
Commenting on Wang's performance, China's head coach Jonas
Kaslauskas said that Yao controls the inside play with his strength
and good physical condition, but Wang isn't as robust although he
has the ability to score from behind the three-point line.
Kaslauskas said Italy and France didn't field the best lineups
for the warm-ups, each team with four to five usual starters on the
DNP (Did Not Play) roster.
"Of course, we didn't have Li Nan and Yao Ming," he added, "but
our defeats can be attributed mainly to our poor defense."
After returning to Beijing, Kaslauskas adjusted the lineup for
the Chinese team by excluding centers Tang Zhengdong and Hu Ke,
calling up instead point guards Xie Libin, best rookie of the
2005-06 CBA season, and Chen Jianghua from the second team of the
Guangdong Southern Tigers, who bagged their third consecutive CBA
title early this year.
Gong Luming, manager of the China team, said that the current
squad has many inside players including Yao, so the head coach is
confident of under-ring play and the departure of Tang and Hu is
reasonable.
Tang, 22, was not only expelled from the national team, but
also?lost his chance to play in the NBA's summer league that
started on July 7.
According to Xia Song, Tang's agent, the 2.13m tall center had
been focused on training for the national team, which delayed his
response to invitations to play with the Toronto Raptors and other
NBA teams. "It's too late now," Xia said.
Point guard Sun Yue from the Beijing Aoshen team, the other
Chinese who was supposed to have joined the NBA draft, withdrew his
application at the last minute. He will continue to play for Aoshen
in the American Basketball Association (ABA) next season and wait
for a more timely opportunity to join the NBA.
Standing at 2.05m, Sun is a point guard with a style of play
that reminds many of the great Earvin "Magic" Johnson of the LA
Lakers. A force to be reckoned with, Sun was selected for the West
All-Star team in the ABA All-Star Game in February.
However, Sun's defects are as prominent as his panache. He is
thin and the stats haven't been very promising: four turnovers, a
39 FGP (field goal percentage) and a 25 percent three-point
shooting average per game in the ABA have stifled his game.
Having played one season in the ABA, the offense-minded Sun
clashed with Kaslauskas' defense-oriented tactics, which explains
why the head coach turned to Guangdong's Chen Jianghua.
Chen, slightly shorter at 1.87m and weighing 75 kg, averaged
17.8 points, 7.5 rebounds, two assists, a 52.9 FGP and a 78.6 FTP
(free throw percentage) for the U-18 China team at the 2005 USA
Youth Development Festival. In June 2006, he also netted a
team-high of 32 points for China's youth team in a friendly with
the Sydney Kings from Australia.
Chen Jianghua
"As a Chinese and a point guard, of course I hope I can play at
the 2008 Olympics and pass balls to Yao Ming," Chen
said. He is the fifth player from Guangdong to join the national
team after Zhu Fangyu, Du Feng, Yi Jianlian and Wang Shipeng.
The US team will play China on August 7, and Brazil on August
8.
(China.org.cn by Li Xiao, July 10, 2006)
