On January 13th, according to Beijing time, after Guo Ailun's departure, significant changes have occurred within the Liaoning men's basketball team, with Zhao Jiwei being the most notable among them. On the court, his performance has become quite unexpected, becoming increasingly aggressive. Sometimes, when he doesn't perform well in the game and fails to deliver at his expected level, he instead bellows at his teammates, which is indeed quite rare.
Liaoning men's basketball team faces numerous challenges on their journey to win this year's four consecutive championships, and it is destined not to be smooth sailing. Looking solely at their current record, the gap between them and the chasing teams is gradually narrowing. Take their record of 20 wins and 10 losses; they are about to be surpassed by old rivals like Guangdong, as well as other teams such as Xinjiang and Shandong. Moreover, in recent games, Liaoning men's basketball team has repeatedly encountered problems in the crucial fourth quarter, allowing opponents to stage astonishing comebacks that leave spectators stunned. At this point, many people blame Yan Shouqi. Yan Shouqi is a player highly regarded by coach Yang Ming and can be considered part of his inner circle. However, it must be said that his performance on the court is far from satisfactory, almost recklessly squandering the trust placed in him by the coach, playing terribly both in terms of skill and appearance.
However, we cannot entirely blame Yan Shouqi, as his abilities are what they are. Coach Yang Ming insists on putting him on the court, despite knowing that his performance may not be up to par. This is undoubtedly a situation that exists on the coaching side. But what many people haven't paid much attention to is that since the departure of Guo Ailun, number 13 and Zhao Jiwei's good buddy and old brother, Zhao's temper has become increasingly explosive, frequently yelling at his teammates on the court. He doesn't play particularly well himself but still blames other players. His behavior on the court is problematic, and considering his abilities, he shouldn't be performing so poorly. Yet, many people overlook these situations.
During the match against Qingdao, Zhao Jiwei's performance was truly subpar. As a starter, he spent a full 27 minutes on the court, yet his shooting performance was disappointing, with only 1 out of 5 shots made, scoring just 4 points. Although he had 5 assists, there were also 2 turnovers and 3 fouls. Given such a low shooting percentage and efficiency on the court, it was unexpected that he would continuously berate his teammates during the game, appearing extremely arrogant. Whenever a teammate missed a shot, he would shout at them, even if they were in an open position but failed to score, they would still receive a harsh reprimand from him. More egregiously, there were several instances where it was his own passing errors, yet he still bellowed at his teammates. Faced with such a situation, the teammates dared not speak up in anger. After all, his status in the team is indeed not low; Guo Ailun has left, and Zhang Zhenlin has yet to return, making Zhao Jiwei seem like the core figure of the team, so no one dares to easily say anything to him. Even in the previous game, there seemed to be some unpleasantness between him and Li Xiaoxu, with a situation of showing a cold face.
It is truly unexpected that since Guo Ailun's departure, on the court, Zhao Jiwei has become the one who frequently rages and complains about his teammates. In the past, even if Guo occasionally questioned and vented to some young players, it was understandable, as young players might not be fully competent in certain areas. However, Guo would never act this way towards the older players in the team. But now, Zhao Jiwei, regardless of who he faces, can open his mouth to blame others.
Although he seems to be a core figure of this team, when you play normally on the basketball court, you can indeed express your opinions on the performance of some teammates, but you shouldn't always blame them. You know, if the level of your teammates is on par with yours, why haven't they received a super top salary of 6 million? Since you are receiving the top salary, you undoubtedly have to shoulder the corresponding responsibilities.
However, the key issue is that his own performance is indeed subpar. On the one hand, he repeatedly complains about others, which really makes people wonder what's going on with him. Back when Guo Ailun was on the team, he was nothing like this, with a much better temperament. Now, he has become a prominent problem facing Liaoning. Taking Zhao Jiwei's return from injury, for example, he always occupies the playing time of Wang Lianqin, who performs more outstandingly, but let's put that aside for now. The most critical point is that he has not achieved any noticeable results with this approach. Since his recovery, he has only scored double digits in one game, isn't that enough to indicate the existence of problems?