Yao Ming says China’s basketball woes to be expected given domestic league’s standard and lack of leaders
- In TV documentary, he says China will develop leaders only when the team start winning more
- The ex-NBA star urges players to test themselves overseas, and be less afraid to make mistakes
China basketball chief Yao Ming has said he was unsurprised to see the men’s national team’s struggles last year at the Fiba World Cup and the Asian Games on home soil, because they reflected the state of the domestic league.
The former Houston Rockets star said Chinese basketball needed players who could “make a decisive contribution in decisive victories”.
Speaking in the 10th and the final episode of Chinese state broadcaster CCTV’s documentary The Past Summer, Yao pointed out the reasons behind China’s failure in the two tournaments.
“I am rather familiar with how this group of players train, and play in the league,” the president of the Chinese Basketball Association said. “When you understand how they performed in the league and compared them with the world’s standard, you wouldn’t find [losing those matches] strange.
“When you saw what happened on the court, first you have to judge whether it’s normal or not. Whatever happens, you either accept it or not because you know it is normal or abnormal.
“And looking at the tournaments, especially after the World Cup, if you think about their performance, you will find that it is normal to a certain extent.”
