According to a report by the Beijing Youth Daily, the struggling Beijing team is actively seeking a fourth foreign player and has engaged in deep discussions with James Nunnally, a former Houston Rockets player who briefly joined Shanghai.
Nunnally stands at 201cm tall, born in 1990, and is nearing 35 years of age. In his time representing Shanghai, he averaged 22.3 points and 5.5 rebounds per game in 33 minutes, with a two-point shooting percentage of 49% and an impressive three-point shooting percentage of 50%.
From the data alone, Nunnally appears to be a highly efficient foreign player, with the only downside being his age. However, according to feedback from Shanghai fans who have watched him play, Nunnally is essentially a pure shooter with excellent accuracy but lacks ball-handling skills. This seems similar to Beijing's current type of player, Omer, but with higher efficiency.
Coach Xu Limin seems to favor this kind of team-oriented foreign players. Currently, the team's players such as Jerman, Solomon, and Omer do not stand out individually but are indeed suitable for the team. However, this also brings about a problem: when things are going smoothly, everything is fine, and the team can win matches easily. But during decisive moments, without a foreign player capable of delivering under pressure, Beijing seems to rely solely on Chen Yingjun to deliver the hard shots.
Facing Shandong, Chen Yingjun had a big breakout, scoring 38 points and crucially adding 7 more points to help the team stay in the game. Despite this outstanding performance, Beijing still lost the match.
It remains to be seen whether Beijing will ultimately sign Nunnally. If they do, they must continue to search for a foreign player with ball-handling skills who can perform well under pressure. They will then need to evaluate whether to cut Nunnally or Omer based on their performances. Team-oriented foreign players are great, but if all four are of the same type, Beijing's key shots could become problematic.