Currently, the CBA regular season schedule has passed more than half, and now the playoff landscape is gradually becoming clear. The bottom few teams in the league have already fallen behind. However, the top eight teams in the league have similar records, and a slight slackening can result in being overtaken in the rankings. Teams that want to go further this season are still strengthening their squads through foreign players. Many teams are still looking for higher-quality foreign players, including Shanxi Men's Basketball and Guangsha Men's Basketball with outstanding records. Moreover, the reinforcement of foreign players has also become targeted. For example, Guangsha Men's Basketball, currently ranked first in the league, already has a top-notch team lineup, but they still introduced former NBA center Boban. Their purpose is very clear, which is to deal with Shanxi Men's Basketball's Liu Chuanxing, Beijing Men's Basketball's Zhou Qi, and other interior players.
Of course, Liaoning Men's Basketball is still trying different big foreign players. They have been changing one after another in the selection of big foreign players, but they are getting worse and worse, including the previous Aqiu'er and Tu Lei. Now they have signed two foreign players, among which Patton has completed his team debut, performing moderately well, at least much better than Tu Lei, but he still needs to integrate with the team. Another big foreign player, Webber III, has also signed with Liaoning Men's Basketball until the end of this season and is about to return to the team. Whether Liaoning Men's Basketball can strengthen its weakest link at that time is also a concern for the outside world. On the other hand, Guangdong Men's Basketball is different from Liaoning Men's Basketball. Their backcourt urgently needs a high-quality small foreign player.
The performance of Guangdong Men's Basketball in the new season is far from reaching expectations, largely due to problems with the selected foreign players, who are mostly older foreign players. With Hu Mingxuan's shoulder injury sidelining him for three months and the previous small foreign player being cut, only Xu Jie is left to support the team. Despite Xu Jie's recent performance at a foreign player level, he plays close to 40 minutes per game, making it easy for injuries to occur in such high-intensity competitions. This point has been kindly reminded to Guangdong Men's Basketball by multiple media people, and Du Feng is well aware of it. In the previous game against Shenzhen Men's Basketball, he specifically limited Xu Jie's playing time.
Previously, several media outlets reported that Guangdong Men's Basketball's small foreign player had surfaced, which was the guard player Daejon Nichols who was just cut by the NBA Timberwolves a few days ago. Nichols is only 22 years old and has played for the Rockets and Timberwolves. This season, he hardly got any playing time with the Timberwolves, playing only 3 games in total, adding up to less than 10 minutes, scoring a total of 1 point, 4 rebounds, and 3 assists. However, in the Timberwolves' affiliate team, he performed at an MVP level, averaging 22.3 points, 4.9 rebounds, 7.6 assists, and 2.9 steals in 10 games in the Development League. As a guard, he has excellent impact and comprehensive scoring methods, which can be said to be very suitable for Guangdong Men's Basketball.
Of course, there are not only one team interested in Nichols, but previously Guangdong Men's Basketball was the most likely to get him, and it was rumored that they had started discussing specific contract matters. However, this recruitment recently encountered a change, because media people revealed that Beijing Men's Basketball, with deep pockets, suddenly wanted to get this capable guard, which is clearly to poach Guangdong Men's Basketball. According to the agent, Beijing Men's Basketball is more sincere in terms of salary, and if everything goes smoothly, Nichols would prefer to join Beijing Shougang.
In addition, the time for Guangsha Men's Basketball foreign player Boban's debut has also been determined. He will play in the game against Beijing Men's Basketball on the 8th, and then he will face Zhou Qi head-on, which is enough to look forward to!
