Do you think China will be a basketball powerhouse at world level in the future?

[bballcrazy]

Despite their recent poor performance of the men's team in the recent FIBA tournament, the youth team U18 and U16 dominated the rest of the asian competition. In the world U19 tournament their team beat Russia, Croatia and Australia. Generally, the youth teams are able to hold their own against top level competition.

With a 1.3 billion pool, I can't see why they can't be at least on par with the european teams. (I mean Lithuania has only 5 million people and they play so well). I believe China should stop focusing so much on height, you have like I-dont-know-how-many 7'0 14 year old prospects and most of these players do not pan out and become stiffs. Instead, try focusing on the player's skills. You also never know when a 5'7 14 year old will stop growing, he might be 6'2 by 18-19. So you really cannot reject any talent until their 18 at least imo.

I believe China will be kings of Asia once again (Hopefully soon) and be a respectable opponent at the world stage but changes need to be made for improvements to this team.

[Mindozas]

In some separate sport it more goes down not to population, but history of that sport, interest. In Lithuania (btw not 5, but 3mln people ) as we say there are 3mln coaches, because it's so called 2nd religion here and huge part of our people are interested in bball, there're bball boards hanging in almost every yard, f.e. around my house I can count atleast 5 All that craziness started before World War II, when we managed to win 2 Euro champs in a row, so people went nuts about basketball, kids/youth started practising it in masses and etc. Then during the war we were occupated by Soviets, and basketball was basically the only our weapon where we could show our identity and kick soviet asses. So that basically couple of reasons why bbal it is where it is in Lithuania. This sport has big history here, also f.e. all other sports doesn't get even close funding to bball alone, even if we win in it some medals in Olympics, still it's all about bball.
In China popularity in bball is quite young, basically it started to grow since Yao went to NBA, but the problem is that it was only around 10 years when Yao rocked, too little time, so hard to say if people won't lose interest, especially since now China NT is really at low level for their standarts. But it's not long left to see that. Kids who grew up watching Yao, started to play bball, should come to the scene. But only if wise choices were made. If Chinese coaches were looking only for tall kids, in case to find a new Yao, then it won't be good (unless they'll find it ). We had such experience in Lithuania, when all coaches desperatelly were looking for new Sabonis some 15-20 years ago. Now we have the situation when we have few promising big guys (Valanciunas, Motiejunas, Sabonis jr.), but we out of promising guards, especially PG is nowhere to be seen.
So I guess it's hard to say if China managed to take some benefits outta Yao, in some 5-10 years we'll know

[Silent Killer]

China needs a good PG. Thats their waterloo ever since. trap them, pressure them and most of the time it ends in turnover.

[DarknessFalls]

They need better guards in general, and play better defense. It's going to be hard to change because in the CBA, most of the imports continue to dominate without major improvements to their own domestic players. Past interviews by non-Chinese also have criticized the way they are developing their players, with over emphasis on long intense practices without proper recovery, which leads to more risk of injury and even reduces the passion for the game. The recruitment system also has been highly questionable, which focuses mainly on height.

Even though Yao Ming was 7'6", he still had great work ethic and passion for the game, which hopefully eventually translates into the NBA Yao basketball school. Stephon Marbury has said that the guards in China lack creativity, but one of his major goals is to become a coach. I think just having him as an assistant or trainer could possibly add to that change.
It will be interesting what Canarias Basketball Academy in Spain does in development, since they have some Chinese players there.

[Silent Killer]

They need better guards in general, and play better defense. It's going to be hard to change because in the CBA, most of the imports continue to dominate without major improvements to their own domestic players. Past interviews by non-Chinese also have criticized the way they are developing their players, with over emphasis on long intense practices without proper recovery, which leads to more risk of injury and even reduces the passion for the game. The recruitment system also has been highly questionable, which focuses mainly on height.

Even though Yao Ming was 7'6", he still had great work ethic and passion for the game, which hopefully eventually translates into the NBA Yao basketball school. Stephon Marbury has said that the guards in China lack creativity, but one of his major goals is to become a coach. I think just having him as an assistant or trainer could possibly add to that change.
It will be interesting what Canarias Basketball Academy in Spain does in development, since they have some Chinese players there.

thats what they clearly lack. to ease the pressure of chinese bigs they need a creative PG to open up some space for chinese bigs for some drop passes.

[bballcrazy]

thats what they clearly lack. to ease the pressure of chinese bigs they need a creative PG to open up some space for chinese bigs for some drop passes.

Though its been said the recent young players do not want to be Yao, instead they want to play the flashy american guard style in games already. It is evident in the younger players, for example Guo Ailun, one of the promising guard prospects. He kind of reminds me a little of Austin Rivers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEW5Fue-TU8

[Khalid80]

China has a chance to regain their position as a powerhouse in Asia but not at the world level... The thing is that without a top notch player like Yao Ming they no longer are that dominant of a team like they used to be... Right now the best team in Asia is Iran and I believe this will continue to be the case for the next 5 years since most of the Iranian players are currently at their prime except for the younger guys like Kazemi who has a great career ahead of him if he can continue improving...

[bballcrazy]

China has a chance to regain their position as a powerhouse in Asia but not at the world level... The thing is that without a top notch player like Yao Ming they no longer are that dominant of a team like they used to be... Right now the best team in Asia is Iran and I believe this will continue to be the case for the next 5 years since most of the Iranian players are currently at their prime except for the younger guys like Kazemi who has a great career ahead of him if he can continue improving...

Yes for 5 years Iran will be at the top, but after 5 years? Probably China again. They have young talents like wang zhelin, li muhao, zhou qi and guo ailun which are all legit NBA prospects. How many does Iran have? If you look at the youth asian team tournaments, China dominates both u16 and u18. China has a 1.3 billion pool and basketball is increasing in popularity, it is hard not for them to be a powerhouse again.

[Khalid80]

Yes for 5 years Iran will be at the top, but after 5 years? Probably China again. They have young talents like wang zhelin, li muhao, zhou qi and guo ailun which are all legit NBA prospects. How many does Iran have? If you look at the youth asian team tournaments, China dominates both u16 and u18. China has a 1.3 billion pool and basketball is increasing in popularity, it is hard not for them to be a powerhouse again.

Yeah after 5 years maybe China could regain this title... But what i'm trying to say is that they won't be as dominant as they were in the past... The difference between them and other powerful NT's in Asia will still remain close...
Iran by the way played in the recent WABA (West Asia) Qualifiers with their U18 NT and they managed to get 2nd place even though the other NT's were all playing with their senior NT's and Jordan (who won the tournament) even had Rasheim Wright playing as their naturalized player.

[sinobball]

Yes for 5 years Iran will be at the top, but after 5 years? Probably China again. They have young talents like wang zhelin, li muhao, zhou qi and guo ailun which are all legit NBA prospects. How many does Iran have? If you look at the youth asian team tournaments, China dominates both u16 and u18. China has a 1.3 billion pool and basketball is increasing in popularity, it is hard not for them to be a powerhouse again.

First of all, U16/U18 are basically competitions between bodies. Junior players lack many skills and even more, lack brains. China is able to locate a number of 7-footers every generation (=2 years), more than Iran or any other Asian country, so there's definitely an edge there in junior competitions. It means nothing in adult competitions, where you essentially only need 5 good athletes who know how to play. Secondly, Chinese U16/U18 players are unlikely U16/U18, at least not all of them.

Of the 4 players you mentioned, I think only Zhou Qi is a legit NBA prospect. Guo is definitely not NBA material. Still, having just 1 NBA player is a lot in Asia, even though naturalization nowadays makes it a lot more common than before.

Yeah after 5 years maybe China could regain this title... But what i'm trying to say is that they won't be as dominant as they were in the past... The difference between them and other powerful NT's in Asia will still remain close...
Iran by the way played in the recent WABA (West Asia) Qualifiers with their U18 NT and they managed to get 2nd place even though the other NT's were all playing with their senior NT's and Jordan (who won the tournament) even had Rasheim Wright playing as their naturalized player.

This makes me wonder, who was the first naturalized player in Asia? Joe Vogel? It has to be a Japanese right?

[sinobball]

In some separate sport it more goes down not to population, but history of that sport, interest. In Lithuania (btw not 5, but 3mln people ) as we say there are 3mln coaches, because it's so called 2nd religion here and huge part of our people are interested in bball, there're bball boards hanging in almost every yard, f.e. around my house I can count atleast 5 All that craziness started before World War II, when we managed to win 2 Euro champs in a row, so people went nuts about basketball, kids/youth started practising it in masses and etc. Then during the war we were occupated by Soviets, and basketball was basically the only our weapon where we could show our identity and kick soviet asses. So that basically couple of reasons why bbal it is where it is in Lithuania. This sport has big history here, also f.e. all other sports doesn't get even close funding to bball alone, even if we win in it some medals in Olympics, still it's all about bball.
In China popularity in bball is quite young, basically it started to grow since Yao went to NBA, but the problem is that it was only around 10 years when Yao rocked, too little time, so hard to say if people won't lose interest, especially since now China NT is really at low level for their standarts. But it's not long left to see that. Kids who grew up watching Yao, started to play bball, should come to the scene. But only if wise choices were made. If Chinese coaches were looking only for tall kids, in case to find a new Yao, then it won't be good (unless they'll find it ). We had such experience in Lithuania, when all coaches desperatelly were looking for new Sabonis some 15-20 years ago. Now we have the situation when we have few promising big guys (Valanciunas, Motiejunas, Sabonis jr.), but we out of promising guards, especially PG is nowhere to be seen.
So I guess it's hard to say if China managed to take some benefits outta Yao, in some 5-10 years we'll know

Very good post here. I think popularity can also result in China always being dominant in non-contact sports like badminton and pingpong, but not likely with contact sport basketball. With for example pingpong, the racket may be split, the ball may have been stepped on, there may not even be a net, the table may be made of stone and of uneven surface (all of which I've encountered growing up), but there's no fundamental difference between how amateurs play and how professionals play. With basketball contact makes a world of difference. Anyone who's been to China multiple times in the past 10 years will notice a tremendous increase in popularity of basketball. Every time I go back it seems like there are better offensive players in high schools. However, they don't play any defense, and those who do don't play physical. The reason is simple, every time two bodies collide there must be a foul. I think this has been discussed multiple times here on this forum, and there may be a cultural reason. Since we have a Singaporean friend in this thread: I've never been to Singapore but sometimes I would watch S'porean videos and those street battles are also devoid of defense/physicality. Before this gets remedied (and that's essentially impossible) I don't think China will have a basketball culture similar, or even close to Lithuania.

[Silent Killer]

First of all, U16/U18 are basically competitions between bodies. Junior players lack many skills and even more, lack brains. China is able to locate a number of 7-footers every generation (=2 years), more than Iran or any other Asian country, so there's definitely an edge there in junior competitions. It means nothing in adult competitions, where you essentially only need 5 good athletes who know how to play. Secondly, Chinese U16/U18 players are unlikely U16/U18, at least not all of them.

Of the 4 players you mentioned, I think only Zhou Qi is a legit NBA prospect. Guo is definitely not NBA material. Still, having just 1 NBA player is a lot in Asia, even though naturalization nowadays makes it a lot more common than before.


This makes me wonder, who was the first naturalized player in Asia? Joe Vogel? It has to be a Japanese right?

Dennis still and jeff moore suited for Phils. in 80's were the first naturalized players in asia.

[bballcrazy]

Very good post here. I think popularity can also result in China always being dominant in non-contact sports like badminton and pingpong, but not likely with contact sport basketball. With for example pingpong, the racket may be split, the ball may have been stepped on, there may not even be a net, the table may be made of stone and of uneven surface (all of which I've encountered growing up), but there's no fundamental difference between how amateurs play and how professionals play. With basketball contact makes a world of difference. Anyone who's been to China multiple times in the past 10 years will notice a tremendous increase in popularity of basketball. Every time I go back it seems like there are better offensive players in high schools. However, they don't play any defense, and those who do don't play physical. The reason is simple, every time two bodies collide there must be a foul. I think this has been discussed multiple times here on this forum, and there may be a cultural reason. Since we have a Singaporean friend in this thread: I've never been to Singapore but sometimes I would watch S'porean videos and those street battles are also devoid of defense/physicality. Before this gets remedied (and that's essentially impossible) I don't think China will have a basketball culture similar, or even close to Lithuania.

In Singapore, we play physical. If you play against serious ballers who play in amateur leagues or pro-am, they really D you and you can see the level of play is different, ball movement is quick and the players are athletic and move fast and they shoot well too. I have seen 5'9 guys dunk in the court that I play, so yeah those guys are strong based on their athletic profile alone.

[bballcrazy]

http://wuhan2014.fibaasia.net/TournamentNewsDetails.aspx?id=4272

Young chinese team beats FIBA Asia Champs Iran 64-51.

I have always said the young guns are better than the senior ones for the China team, they play with more enthusiasm and athleticism.

[Silent Killer]

http://wuhan2014.fibaasia.net/Tourna...s.aspx?id=4272

Young chinese team beats FIBA Asia Champs Iran 64-51.

I have always said the young guns are better than the senior ones for the China team, they play with more enthusiasm and athleticism.

And their weakness is still their weakness which is the guards..