National Basketball League: more home games for Hong Kong Bulls fans as season begins with format, imports rule changes

Basketball fans in Hong Kong will be able to watch more Hong Kong Bulls home games when the new season of China’s National Basketball League (NBL) tips off in a fortnight. The season, which starts on June 15, will see the adoption of an NBA-like league format, with 10 teams – two fewer than last season – divided into Northern and Southern conferences. The Bulls are in the Southern Conference alongside Guangxi, Jiangxi, Changsha and Wuhan, while Henan, Shijiazhuang, Jiangsu, Hefei and Anhui belong to the Northern Conference. “With the conferences settings, just like the East and West in the NBA, we have two more home games than last season,” said Leo Sun Xinwei, general manager of the Bulls. “Teams from the same conference will play each other twice at home, but only one home game will be scheduled for teams across the other conference.” Shaanxi and Liaoning, who were ranked No 2 and No 5 in the regular season in the last campaign, have dropped out but the different number of teams and the change in league format are not the only differences. Sun confirmed that the NBL, China’s second-tier basketball league, will now allow teams to field three imported players in each match but can play a maximum of two of them in each of the four quarters. The league allowed only two import players on the team sheet last season, and teams could not play them more than six times during the entire match. Sun, who joined the Bulls last October, revealed teams were consulted during the off-season and the Bulls preferred to cap the deployment of imported players to seven times a match, but were outvoted. “This is not perfect for us because we have quite some reinforcements in terms of our mainland China players,” he said. “If there is only one import player [on the court] in the fourth quarter, we may have a small advantage, but that is not an absolute, of course. “As good as those imports are, we always believe the foreign players determine the team’s lower limit in terms of the results, but it’s always the standard of the local players determining if one is a champion-calibre team, or can reach the finals.” The Bulls have added United States forward Oliver Cameron (203-F-1996, college: Nevada) to their team this summer. Oliver, 27, had two short stints and played six games for the Houston Rockets and the Atlanta Hawks in 2021 and 2022, respectively, averaging 11 points and 4.5 rebounds. The team has also signed Jones Dominique (193-G-1988, college: S.Florida). The 35-year-old, who started playing in the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) in 2013, played 80 games for the Dallas Mavericks over three years from 2010. Sources told the Post the third import player for the Bulls is a 25-year-old playing in the NBA G League last season. Former Bay Area Dragons centre Chuanxing Liu (222-C-1997), former NBL champion Jian Dong (193-F/G-1996), former CBA All-Star Ray Zhu Songwei and Sui-Hung Yeung (186-G-1997), who played for Hong Kong at the FIBA Universality Olympic Qualifying Tournament in April, are among the Bulls’ off-season additions. Sun, who had previous administrative roles with CBA teams including Qingdao, Jilin and Shanghai, also confirmed the new NBL season would see matches shortened by eight minutes to 40. It is understood the change is part of the sport’s China-based governing body’s plan to try to align with the FIBA, instead of the NBA. “After missing out on two Olympics, and not playing too well in two recent World Cups, CBA had been studying and trying to make changes,” Sun said. “The idea was first raised by China men’s team head coach Aleksandar Dordevic, who believed it did not make sense for the national leagues and national team to be playing different formats of basketball. “I think, as a team, we have the obligation to help, to see if these changes would help improve the basketball standard in China.”
Courtesy of: scmp.com