By Jon Pastuszek It’s November 2010, and Stephon Marbury has locked himself inside a hotel room in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, sad, hurt and uncertain over his future in China. Eight months earlier, after basically being told he wasn’t welcome anymore in the NBA, he had come to play for the Shanxi Brave Dragons of the Chinese Basketball... Read more »
Our coverage of the CBA Finals continues: Above (Youku video for those in China after the jump): the final 17 seconds of last night’s game, in which the Beijing Ducks — with Stephon Marbury on the bench with six fouls — tries to protect a two-point lead. Watch as Guangdong gets three shots to at... Read more »
Award ceremony video; Youku video for those in China after the jump. No, it wasn’t the fans booing lustily at the roll call of Guangdong players (who didn’t take the court), eventually transitioning into responding “stupid cunt” to every call. The funniest moment was when the tallest player in the CBA (quite possibly the tallest... Read more »
They kept trying to jinx it, I swear to God they did. Before tonight's game, the club gave away t-shirts (white, per Stephon Marbury's suggestion) that read, "March 30, 2012: Beijing Ducks are champions."
With 21.9 seconds left, Beijing up two and Guangdong set to inbound, the crowd chanted, "Championship! Championship!"
Left: Su Wei; right: Liu Hongjiang (photoshopped, obviously; via Weibo) Sports fans can be vicious, especially when given anonymity and — this is very important — assent from authority to unleash their anger. I mention this latter part because it seems that Liu Hongjiang, head boss of the Guangdong Hongyuan Southern Tigers, has instigated a... Read more »
Jon Pastuszek over at NiuBBall has added an incredible detail in a post titled “Beijing-Guangdong Game 1: The night the CBA was at its best and worst” (first uncovered among English-language China blogs by China Sports Review): Yet the most amazing was that [Guangdong] Coach Li, a man who has won seven CBA championships, was the one... Read more »
At the 52-second mark of this Youku video, which accompanies yesterday’s post titled “Watch This Dirty, Dirty Foul On Stephon Marbury, Followed By Some Shithead Telling Him, ‘Fuck You,’” one hears a sudden crackling sound before the stream suddenly stops. It doesn’t start again until the 1:45 mark, after China national-team member Su Wei has stopped... Read more »
The CBA employs a 1-2-2-2 finals format, meaning the team with the worse record starts Game 1 at home. Theoretically it leads to longer series, but that's incumbent on the home team actually winning Game 1. Beijing, as the heavy underdogs against the four-time defending champs, was in a must-win situation on Wednesday, playing for the first time at Olympic-quality Wukesong. Embedded above and after the jump, you'll find the game in its entirety.
Youku video for those in China after the jump. [UPDATE, 3/23: Did Youku just censor my video? Embedded below is now the video on 56.com.][UPDATE 2: Well fuck, 56.com and Tudou have rejected my video as well. Hang on while I find a host that doesn't employ censors bored as shit and behaving like craven... Read more »
Stephon Marbury has had his rebirth, his redemption, and now his catharsis -- in the form of a good, long cry. In the waning moments of Sunday's Game 5, which saw Beijing oust Shanxi to claim its first CBA finals appearance in its 17-year history, cameras appeared to catch Marbury shedding a few tears on the court. But it was in the tunnels afterwards -- the bathroom, to be precise -- that he really broke down, crying "like a young child," according to the TV journalist in the next video. He then embraced his head coach. When he finally composed himself to talk to the assembled media, he said, "Man, this is the best feeling I ever had playing basketball."
