China’s CBA celebrates its Silver Jubilee in 2020, having been founded in 1995. Yao Ming, China’s ambassador for basketball in the USA, started in China’s CBA, which places a focus on bringing through Chinese talent.
The tournament winner takes home the Mou Zuoyun Cup, which is named after the eminent player and coach who helped to set up an infrastructure that led to China’s CBA.
China CBA Background
BetGold enables you to study the league and have fun when betting on China’s CBA. Historically there are seven teams who competed in the first season who still play in the CBA: Bayi, Beijing, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Liaoning, Shandong and Zhejiang all have franchises.
China Basketball Top Teams
Each team has an NBA-style nickname, e.g. Beijing Ducks, Bayi Rockets and Guangdong Southern Tigers. The Southern Tigers, Rockets and Jiangsu Dragons are among 10 teams who compete in the Southern Division of the CBA, while the Ducks, Liaoning Flying Leopards and Shandong Heroes are among the ten Northern Division sides. The final matches are a best-of-seven series, which used to be a best-of-five series.
Looking back over CBA finals, it can be seen that Yao Ming deserves his status as one of China’s best ever players. Yao won the League MVP award in 2000/01 while playing for Shanghai Sharks in an era dominated by Bayi Rockets; they were champions in every season between 1995 and 2003 except 2002. Odds on them winning another CBA must have been very low at the time.
In the 2010s, the MVP has often been an American basketball player. Randolph Morris (Beijing Ducks, 2013/14), Stephon Marbury (Beijing Ducks, 2014/15), Darius Adams (a dual Bulgarian-American passport holder who played for Xinjiang Flying Tigers in 2016/17) and Lester Hudson (Liaoning Flying Leopards) all dominated China’s CBA with their prowess.
China Basketball Top Players
Marbury is one of the key figures in CBA history, having moved from Boston to China after stints in Minnesota, New Jersey, Phoenix – where he was a two-time NBA All Star – and the famous New York Knicks.
He is currently the coach of Beijing’s Royal Fighters team. We are betting that basketball fans know of Metta Sandiford-Artest (formerly Metta World Peace), the former Los Angeles Lakers player who had an injury-curtailed season (2014/15) at Sichuan Blue Whales. The odds on him playing in China at the time were extremely unlikely.
The first Middle Eastern MVP was Hamed Haddadi in 2015/16 who led Sichuan Blue Whales to the CBA title. Standing 2.18m tall, he moved from the NBA to the CBA and returns to Iran in the off-season. In the 2000s, Zhu Fangyu of the Guangdong Southern Tigers was the four-time MVP and eight-time CBA winner.
As well as winning two gold medals for China at the Asian Games, he joined Yao Ming as an Olympian. When he retired in 2017, Zhu led the CBA in appearances (698), points (11,165) and successful three-point shots (1607). Today he is the team’s general manager.
The Southern Tigers currently hold the CBA title, having whitewashed Xinjiang Flying Tigers 4-0 in the 2018/19 finals. Yi Jianlian was the MVP of that series: a former NBA player, Yi has two American team-mates in MarShon Brooks and Sonny Weems. While betting on the CBA, study the odds to see if any American players can make the difference.
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