Two Guangdong rejects combined for 65 points! Morand updated his social media late at night! Zhu and Du Feng are under pressure!
Playing 40 minutes, shooting 15 of 11, three-pointers 10 of 7, scoring 29 points, 7 rebounds, and 8 assists! Shooting 19 of 14, three-pointers 7 of 5, free throws 3 of 3, scoring 36 points, 12 rebounds, and 10 assists! You didn't read it wrong; this is the post-game data from the Shenzhen team versus the Fujian team. The two Guangdong rejects combined for 65 points, leading their team to a three-game winning streak!
Now let's take a look at the so-called young players of the Guangdong team! In his seventh season of his career, Du Runwang averages 8.1 points and 2.3 rebounds per game, while Zhang Haojia, in his sixth season, averages 3.6 points and 1.9 rebounds per game! And yet, it was said that Zhou Peng was abandoned to make way for new players! I wonder what Du Feng and Zhu Fangyu think after seeing Zhou Peng's performance!
After scoring 29 points and setting a new season-high in this game, Zhou Peng has now scored over 20 points in five consecutive games. After hitting seven three-pointers in a single game, his career three-pointer count has reached 968, rising to 16th on the CBA's all-time three-pointer list! Meanwhile, Zhou Peng's three-point shooting percentage this season is as high as 43.2%, only 1.2 percentage points away from his career-high of 44.4%! What's more ironic is that among the current Guangdong team, apart from college player Zhang Wenyi and veteran Ren Junfei, no one has a higher three-point shooting percentage than Zhou Peng! Of course, this includes Du Runwang and Zhang Haojia, who rely on three-pointers for their livelihood!
More importantly, scoring isn't Zhou Peng's strongest suit; his greater contribution lies in defense! Since the second stage, the most troublesome player for other teams in the league should be Shanghai's Lofton, who can play inside and outside and has a strong body, leaving almost everyone helpless against him! However, in the previous match between Shanghai and Shenzhen, Zhou Peng could repeatedly thwart Lofton's offensive attempts, holding him to just 22 points throughout the game, while Zhou Peng himself hit eight three-pointers and scored 25 points in that game!
However, the comparison between Zhou Peng and the current group of big sweet potatoes in the Guangdong team isn't the most obvious! The contrast between Weems and Barton, Arms, and Reese is even more heart-wrenching! At the beginning of the season, Weems once expressed on social media that he felt the Guangdong team no longer needed him. From his statement, it can be seen that he was still willing to serve the Guangdong team; it was Zhu Fangyu and Du Feng who chose to abandon him!
So far this season, Weems can still score in double digits with an average playing time of 20 minutes per game, and in this game, he even directly recorded a triple-double! Looking at Barton, Arms, and Reese, well, I won't say more; saying more would just bring tears. No matter what, Zhou Peng and Weems will never wear the Guangdong team's jersey again!
Let's take a look at what we have now! Late last night, Morand updated his social media account, expressing that in 2025, let's cheer together! Accompanying the post were several pictures of him returning to Liaoning's home court to receive the championship trophy! As a meritorious player for Liaoning, Morand can be said to have made great contributions to Liaoning's three consecutive championships! Now, he must also want to fight for another championship for the Guangdong team! The reason why Zhu Fangyu and Du Feng chose to sign Morand is undoubtedly for this goal! This season, both of them can be said to be under immense pressure!
Now, halfway through the season, the Guangdong team is still struggling and could become a team on the edge of the playoffs at any moment! More seriously, up to now, Zhu and Du Feng have still not found a reliable small foreign aid. Looking at the average of 35 points by Samner, 33 points by Jones, and the 50 points scored in a single game by Wells, and then looking at the only worse, not the worst, Barton, Arms, and Reese, and recalling the lofty goal Zhu publicly set at the beginning of the season to surpass last season, as well as the two veterans they abandoned who are now making waves in the Shenzhen team! It must be said that the pressure on Zhu and Du Feng has really arrived!