The 24th round of the CBA regular season, the Liaoning-Guangdong battle, has concluded last night. Liaoning emerged victorious with a narrow 95-89 win over Guangdong, securing their first victory against Guangdong this season. The triumph was attributed to the outstanding performance of super foreign player Wells, who scored 30 points, grabbed 5 rebounds, and dished out 7 assists, along with Han Dejun's double-double of 16 points and 12 rebounds. Wang Lanqin, Fu Hao, and Li Huyi played a crucial role in the fourth quarter, contributing a combined 19 points.
Looking back at the game, Guangdong's loss wasn't entirely unfortunate, as Du Feng had more players at his disposal than Yang Ming, and they had two additional foreign players. However, the team's defeat can be attributed to two recurring issues: firstly, other young players within the team failed to step up and score, acting as game-changers; secondly, Xu Jie was once again overworked.
Xu Jie played nearly 46 minutes in this game, scoring 16 points, grabbing 4 rebounds, and providing 4 assists with 3 turnovers. However, his shooting accuracy wasn't high (6 out of 13), and his scoring was on par with Wang Lanqin. Moreover, his assist count didn't increase much (only one more than Wang Lanqin). This indicates that Xu Jie, who primarily handles the ball, is less efficient on both ends of the court compared to Wang Lanqin, who mostly plays off-ball. It's worth noting that Wang Lanqin also shot 6 out of 13, but he saved his energy for the fourth quarter. In the decisive final quarter, Wang Lanqin scored 9 points in a row, helping Liaoning maintain the lead. In contrast, Xu Jie's points were mainly distributed in the first half, with 13 points in the first two quarters, zero in the third, and only three in the fourth. As the game progressed, Xu Jie struggled to make shots, which was one of the reasons why Guangdong couldn't turn the tide in the fourth quarter.
To alleviate the pressure on Xu Jie, Guangdong recently brought in Les, who was included in the 12-man roster for this game. However, something interesting happened: Guangdong fans watched the game for hours but never saw Les on the court.
During the national anthem at the start of the game, Les had already disappeared. If fans paid close attention, they would have noticed that only 11 players from Guangdong were present for the singing of the national anthem.
Throughout the game, Les was not seen on the Guangdong bench. In the third quarter, the bench was occupied by Wang Shaojie, Xu Xin, Du Runwang, Zhang Wenyi, Bazley, and Zhang Hao.
During the post-game ceremony where players exchanged pleasantries and thanks, apart from Morand embracing his former Liaoning teammates, we didn't see Les among the Guangdong players gathered for the fist-bumping ritual. It can be said that Les did not attend the game at all last night. Guangdong registered 12 players but only had 11 present, and Du Feng used a 10-man rotation. Xu Jie's backup point guard options were limited to Huang Rongqi and Zhang Wenyi.
So where did Les go? Let's take a look at what Guan Xin had to say. After the game, Guan Xin responded to this question in his personal live broadcast, stating that Les had an issue with his attitude and didn't even show up at the arena for last night's game.
After the big win against Jilin in the previous round, Guan Xin, as usual, posted a video review after the game. There was a noteworthy comment in the video where Guan Xin suggested that Les' role was to be Xu Jie's substitute, so expectations for him shouldn't be too high. However, he still hoped that Les could play to allow Xu Jie to rest for a couple of minutes each quarter, which would be worthwhile.
Previously, there were two reasons why Du Feng benched Les: 1) Les' abilities were insufficient; 2) he hadn't fully integrated with the team and grasped the essence of Guangdong's playing style. Now, it seems another reason must be added: Les' attitude towards the game is problematic.
Even though he was just a temporary player, Les didn't seem to cherish the opportunity to play. In the previous game against a weakened Jilin team, Guangdong had already eliminated any suspense by the end of the second quarter, turning the second half into a training session for both teams. During this period, Du Feng likely wanted Les to get more playing time, as Les received playing time at the end of the first quarter. However, throughout the game, Les only played for the last 1 minute and 38 seconds of that quarter, failing to score (0 out of 1). He was benched again by Du Feng in the subsequent three quarters.
Let's speculate on why Du Feng didn't want Les based on his performance during those two offensive and defensive plays. 1) When Jilin launched a counterattack from defense, Les didn't closely mark the ball-handler, resulting in defensive lapses and committing a low-level foul. It seemed like there was some disagreement between Les and Morand, suggesting that his defensive attitude might be problematic.
- In the final offensive play of the quarter, Morand intended to set up Les, moving out to the perimeter to create opportunities for him. However, Les didn't grasp Morand's goodwill and passed the buck to Morand when the offensive time was almost up, forcing Morand to attempt a difficult shot.
Judging from Les' brief time on the court, it's clear that he couldn't partner with Morand. There was no chemistry between them (despite Les having trained with Guangdong for some time), and Les was not professional. Previously, many fans had pointed out that Les took pre-game warm-ups lightly during Guangdong's matches (Jilin always arrived two hours early for warm-ups).
Although Du Feng still included Les' name on the roster before the Liaoning-Guangdong battle, this time, it wasn't necessary for Du Feng to bench Les. Les himself chose to boycott Du Feng, quitting the game. He openly declared his stance and boycotted the match. Therefore, from another perspective, Zhu Fangyu's decision to register Les only on December 24th was indeed clever. We may have misunderstood Zhu Fangyu. Initially, he only signed Les for a month, and saving money was secondary. The main issue was that Les didn't show any initiative to integrate into the team, both on and off the court. If Guangdong hadn't struggled to find a good small foreign player, they wouldn't have temporarily signed Les, who even Liaoning didn't want.