Category: International Basketball Blog

Xinhau reports: Former Houston Rockets’ guard Bonzi Wells arrived China on Friday afternoon to join Shanxi Zhongyu of the Chinese Basketball Association league, the club confirmed on Friday. The 32-year-old agreed a one-year contract with the club and the details of the contract were not disclosed. The club manager Zhang Beihai denied a rumour of 80,000 U.S.-dollar salary for the former teammate of Yao Ming, the most famous Chinese basketball player in the NBA, saying Well’s salary is around half of the amount.

Euroleague.net reports: Cibona’s excellent start to the season has been in part thanks to the great contributions of swingman Rawle Marshall and he now has some individual honors to go with his team’s success. Marshall not only helped Cibona register a critical win against Le Mans, but he also registered the best individual performance in Week 7 with a 34 index. Marshall led Cibona to a 89-70 home win with 21 points on 5-for-5 two-point and 2-for-3 three-point shooting. He added 5 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals and 8 fouls drawn to amass that 34 index. Meanwhile Kaya Peker helped Efes Pilsen rejoin the Top 16 race in Group D. Efes beat AJ Milano 74-67 behind 19 points, 9 rebounds, 4 steals and 10 fouls drawn from Peker, good for a 31 index.

The AP reports: A crackdown on “age shaving” has found 36 players in China’s professional basketball league were older than they originally stated, the official basketball association announced Tuesday. No individual players were named in a report published in the Sports Ministry’s official newspaper, China Sports Daily. Officials have turned over the data to world basketball’s governing body, FIBA, and the Asian Basketball Association in hopes of “winning their understanding,” said Liu Xiaonong, the head of the association’s Communist Party committee. “In the future we will take whatever measures to strictly monitor player registrations,” Liu said.

Gold Coast Blaze import Justin Bowen has taken out the National Basketball League (NBL) Player of the Week award for Round 12 after guiding his team to an upset victory over the Perth Wildcats.

Bowen exploded for a round-high 35 points for the Blaze in their emphatic 129-97 victory over the Perth Wildcats at the Gold Coast Convention Centre on Sunday afternoon. The 201cm forward had 20 points in the third period alone, helping the Blaze to a game-winning 45-17 edge in the quarter.

The former Illinois-Chicago University standout also racked up five rebounds, two assists, two blocks and two steals. He shot the ball at an amazing 71% from the field (12-of-17), 75% from the three-point line (3-of-4) and was a perfect 8-of-8 from the free throw line.

The win was just the third for the cellar-dwelling Blaze this season, who improved to 3-13 with the victory, and came against a much higher-seeded opponent in the Wildcats (currently 9-9; fifth).

Bowen edged out Adelaide’s Luke Schenscher for the weekly honours. Schenscher was remarkable for the 36ers as they recorded an upset 102-94 win over the third-seeded Melbourne Tigers. The redhead had 17 points and an astonishing 22 rebounds, despite matching up against reigning league Most Valuable Player and fellow seven-footer Chris Anstey.

Others in consideration for Player of the Week included Kirk Penney (New Zealand), Luke Whitehead (Gold Coast), Chris Anstey (Melbourne), James Harvey (Gold Coast), Shawn Redhage (Perth), Julius Hodge (Adelaide), Alex Loughton (Perth), Matthew Knight (Sydney), Mark Worthington (South), Brad Hill (Adelaide), David Gruber (Sydney), Joe Ingles (South) Rod Grizzard (Melbourne), Brad Williamson (Townsville), Larry Abney (Cairns) and Glen Saville (Wollongong).

The National Basketball League (NBL) released the following statement from interim Chief Executive Officer Scott Derwin in response to the announcement by the Cairns Taipans that the club had been placed into voluntary administration.

“I received a call from Cairns Taipans majority owner, John O’Brien late last night informing us that he had placed the club into voluntary administration,” said Derwin.

“The decision to hand the club over to administrators has come as a shock to the League as it had received no previous indication from the Taipans that the club was experiencing extreme financial difficulties.

“There was also no prior indication from the club that it intended to take this course of action when the recent issues surrounding the Sydney Spirit were being addressed, which is disappointing.”

“The League understands that John O’Brien is acting in a responsible and ethical manner by appointing an administrator, choosing not to run the risk of trading while insolvent,” said Mr Derwin.  “We are confident the appropriate administrator has been appointed to make sound business decisions regarding the financial viability of the club.

“I will be meeting with the administrator today to determine the extent of the club’s financial situation and to explore all possible options for the Taipans to continue to play in the NBL.  However, it is the administrators, which will ultimately decide the future of the club.

“We remain hopeful that a way can be found for the club to play out the rest of the season.”

Derwin stated that the recent issues surrounding the financial viability of some NBL clubs highlighted why basketball in Australia was undergoing significant reform.  “Basketball now has a unified national governing body to run the sport with a revised management structure focused on delivering strong commercial and community benefits for the sport.

“The need for greater accountability and commercial viability will see the introduction of a more stringent criteria for the ‘New NBL’, in terms of ownership guidelines and financial guarantees, when it is launched next season.”

Euroleague.net reports: The best individual performance until now in the 2008-09 Euroleague came at the perfect time for his team and crowned forward Lior Eliyahu of Maccabi Electra the MVP for Week 6 of the regular season. Maccabi Electra needed nothing less than Eliyahu’s best in order to outlast Cibona for a crucial 88-83 home victory in Group A, the team’s first since head coach Pini Gershon returned. Eliyahu was a one-man wrecking crew all game long, piling up 24 points on 10-for-14 two-point shooting and pulling 17 rebounds. Eliyahu added 6 assists and 8 fouls drawn for a performance index rating of 42, the highest in the Euroleague so far this season. He was followed in second place by Paulius Jankunas of Zalgiris, who shined despite his team’s home loss to Panathinaikos.

The Washington Times (Barker Davis) reports: The 6-foot-1, 170-pound guard has all but vanished from basketball’s collective conscious. Jennings is the fourth member of Lottomatica Roma’s backcourt rotation. Buried in the depth chart behind guards like former All-Big East performer Allan Ray (Villanova) and former Ivy League player of the year Ibrahim Jaaber (Penn), Jennings exited the team’s first eight games averaging 4.9 points and 3.0 assists in 17.3 minutes. Jennings is being well-compensated for his spot duty. Contracts with the Rome-based club and UnderArmour are reportedly earning him in excess of $3 million this season. But the long-term wisdom of his career choice remains questionable.

Euroleague.net reports: A player who has withstood a roller-coaster career by means of his strong character, Sani Becirovic of Lottomatica Roma, has been chosen the MVP for November by Euroleague Basketball. At age 27, Becirovic has already seen the highs and lows of Euroleague competition this decade, scoring more than 20 points per game as a teenager, losing two seasons to a career-threatening injury, and returning to become a continental champ with Panathinaikos in 2007. Having arrived to the Italian capital this season with the role of veteran floor director, Becirovic filled it to perfection in November. Whether going home to Slovenia to face his old club, Union Olimpija, challenging one of the Euroleague’s historically toughest home teams, Tau Ceramica, or squaring off for first place against Fenerbahce, Becirovic was consistently the right man in the right place at the right time for Roma. He finished the month averaging 19 points, 3 rebounds and 4.6 assists in almost 27 minutes per game.

The AP reports: China is ordering its basketball players to stop faking their birth dates, local media reported Friday, turning the spotlight back on allegations of systematic altering of athlete’s ages. Sports authorities have sometimes been accused of altering players’ ages to show them as being younger, mainly to qualify them for youth tournaments. Those false ages stay with athletes and can result in embarrassment and regulatory sanctions when athletes move on to greater success. While that practice, known as ‘age shaving,’ is considered widespread in sports such as basketball and football, the opposite was suspected in the controversy surrounding the women’s gymnastics competition at the Beijing Olympics.