Chen Hsin-an signs with Pure Youth

Chen Hsin-an, arguably Taiwan’s best player, would play in his home country Taiwan next season after signing with Pure Youth Construction on Friday, local media reported.

Chen, who spent the last two years with Dongguan in the Chinese league CBA, decided to play closer to his family as he now have two daughters.

The 1.96-meter forward sign with Pure Youth for two years with the maximum monthly salary of NT$120,000 (US$3,936) allowed under SBL regulation. Signing bonuses and incentives were not disclosed. (However, I suspect that PY would pay Chen more than that.)

Taiwan basketball notes

Chen Hsin-an to sign with PY?
Chen Hsin-an, 31, reportedly will return to Taiwan and sign with Pure Youth after spending the last two years in China with Dongguan.

Chen has finished his two-year contract with Dongguan, where his playing time was limited due to injury and other reasons. According to the United Daily News, Dacin Tigers is also trying to sign Chen, but Chen has not reached a final decision on his future, saying that he wants to focus on the upcoming FIBA Asia Championship for Men right now.

EABC: Taiwan beat Japan 75-74

Chen Hsin-an made two free-throws with 0.8 seconds left in the game as Taiwan defeated Japan 75-74 Friday in the opening game of the 2011 East Asian Basketball Championship, which serves as the qualifying tourney for the Asian Championship, in Nanjing, China.

The victory marked the first win for Taiwan NT head coach Chou Jun-san, who debut with the national team Friday. The Japan game was also Taiwan’s first game under the guidance of technical advisor Bob Hill, a former NBA head coach.

Taiwan announces final roster for EABC

[No Tien Lei (middle) and Tseng Wen-ting (right) for Taiwan NT this year. Lee Hsueh-lin (left) returned from China to be back with the team.]

The Chinese Taipei Basketball Association on Friday announced the final roster for the upcoming East Asian Basketball Championship, the qualifying tournament for the 2011 FIBA Asia Championship.

The 12-man lineup is led by three core players who played last season in China, including former Taiwan Beer forward Lin Chih-chieh and a pair of ex-Yulon Luxgen stars — forward Chen Hsin-an and point guard Lee Hsueh-lin.

CTBA announces 24-man preliminary roster of Taiwan men’s NT

The Chinese Taipei Basketball Association approved the 24-man preliminary roster of Taiwan men’s NT for the East Asian Basketball Championship, a qualifier for the 2011 FIBA Asia Championship for Men, submitted by Taiwan NT head coach Chou Jun-san Friday.

Six oversea players, including the trio playing in China — Lin Chih-chieh, Chen Hsin-an and Lee Hsueh-lin, Tseng Wen-ting, who is playing for BJ League’s Osaka Evessa in Japan, and the pair playing in the U.S. — Jet Chang and Chou Yi-hsiang.

Chang finished a brilliant junior season with the NCAA Div-II BYU-Hawaii, leading the Seasiders to the championship game and scoring 78 points in two games in the Final Four. He became the first Taiwanese player to be named the Most Outstanding Player in Div-II Final Four. He averaged 21.2 points during the season.

20-year-old Chou, a 6-4 freshman in Salt Lake Community College, averaged 4.6 points in 15.1 minutes in his first year in the U.S.

Preliminary roster:

Yang Ching-min, 188cm, 1984/01/22, 27, TB
Wu Tai-hao, 202cm, 1985/02/07, 26, TB
Cheng Jen-wei, 194cm, 1987/04/06, 24, KKL
Chen Shih-nian, 180cm, 1984/04/08, 27, TB
Ho Shou-cheng, 196cm, 1983/02/15, 28, TB
Doug Creighton, 195cm, 1985/03/07, 26, TB
Tien Lei, 202cm, 1983/06/01, 27, Dacin
Chang Chih-feng, 183cm, 1981/04/22, 30, Dacin
Chen Tse-wei, 200cm, 1985/01/30, 26, Dacin
James Mao, 196cm, 1982/11/16, 28, PY
Chien Chia-hung, 197cm, 1987/03/06, 24, PY
Lu Cheng-ju, 194cm, 1986/08/23, 24, Yulon
Chen Shun-hsiang, 190cm, 1985/05/02, 26, BOT
Su Yi-chieh, 182cm, 1987/01/28, 24, TM
Chen Ching-huan, 190cm, 1987/12/18, 25, KKL
Chang Jung-hsuan, 194cm, 1986/02/03, 23, KKL
Lee Hsueh-lin, 175cm, 1984/01/31, 27, Beijing (China)
Tseng Wen-ting, 202cm, 1984/07/06, 26, Osaka (Japan)
Lin Chih-chieh, 192cm, 1982/06/11, 28, Zhejiang (China)
Chen Hsin-an, 195cm, 1980/07/01, 30, Dong Guan (China)
Jet Chang, 192cm, 1988/12/27, 22, BYU-Hawaii (US)
Chou Po-chen, 196cm, 1990/08/08, 20, Taiwan Normal University
Chou Yi-hsiang, 194cm, 1991/02/04, 20, Salt Lake CC (US)

Meanwhile, Chou has nominated PY head coach Hsu Chin-tse as one of his assistants. The other assistant coach remains to be named.

Taiwan’s 12-man roster for FIBA Asia Stankovic Cup set

Taiwan NT head coach Zhang Xuelei announced his 12-man roster for the upcoming FIBA Asia Stankovic Cup tournament with center Tseng Wen-ting back in the mix to boost up the thin frontline.

The tournament will be held in Lebanon from Aug. 7-15 as a qualification tourney for the 2011 Asian Championship, which incidentally will also take place in Lebanon.

It will be also important for Taiwan to participate in this tournament and finish in the top five, which will win seeds for five subzones under FIBA Asia. Since the East Asia zone is granted two seeds in the next Asian Championship, if Taiwan fails to finish in the top five, it will have to vie for the two East Asian seeds with China and Japan, who will not send their teams to Lebanon next month, in the next East Asian Basketball Championship that also serves as a qualifying tournament.

Zhang will welcome back Tseng Wen-ting, who has been in the U.S. for individual training, after Taiwan NT’s miserable 2-4 record and the 5th-place finish in the 2010 Jones Cup. Entering the Jones Cup without a true center, Taiwan NT was outmatched in the paint defensively and could only rely on their perimeter game.

The addition of Tseng may not be probably enough though as most of Taiwan’s core players are still under rehab of their injuries. Tien Lei, Wu Tai-hao and Lin Chih-chieh will once again skip the Stankovic Cup. The health of Chen Hsin-an, who is now playing for China’s Dongguan, is also unclear. Chen was not selected to the national team partially because he did not play in Taiwan at all last year.

Po., Name, Ht., Age
G Lee Hsueh-lin, Yulon, 175cm, 26
G Chen Shih-nian, Taiwan Beer, 180cm, 26
G Yang Ching-min, TB, 188cm, 25
G Hong Chih-shan, Pure Youth, 176cm, 24
G Chen Shun-hsiang, BOT, 190cm, 25
G Jet Chang, BYU Hawaii, 190cm, 21
F Chien Chia-hong, Pure Youth, 196cm, 22
F James Mao, Pure Youth, 196cm, 27
F Lu Cheng-ju, Yulon, 192cm, 23
F Cheng jen-wei, KKL, 194cm, 23
F Chen Tse-wei, Dacin, 200cm, 24
C Tseng Wen-ting, Yulon, 204cm, 26

Head Coach: Zhang Xuelei
Assistants: Chiu Tsun-chih, Chiu Chi-yi

Cross-Strait tournament
The fifth edition of a cross-Taiwan Strait tournament will be held in Taiwan in the end of the month with four teams participating, local media reported. The four teams are: Taiwan Beer, Fujian SBS Xunxin from Chinese League CBA, Hong Kong champion Nam Wah and Macau Fukien basketball team. The tourney will be played at Taipei Municiple Arena and National Yilan University Stadium.

New wave of player exodus imminent

Lin Chih-chieh

With Chen Hsin-an and Lin Chih-chieh off to China already, more players are expected to leave Taiwan and play in China’s Chinese Basketball Association and hurt the popularity of the domestic league even more.

According to media reports, Lee Hsueh-lin of Yulon, Chen Shih-nian of Taiwan Beer and Su Yi-chieh of Dacin are all considering to relocate to China next year, which means the SBL is in danger of losing three starting point guards.

It appears to me that all of them are going because they’ve been in talks with Chinese teams already with the assistance and consultation of Taiwan Beer marketing director Chen Jian-chou, aka Blackie.

There’s no stopping them from going since thier contracts with former teams were up and are free agents.

Given the increasing gaps, in terms of size and financial capability, between the SBL and the CBA, most Taiwanese players would love to play in China to make more money if somebody showed interests. However, I think neither the CTBA nor the seven SBL teams want to see their better players leaving Taiwan.

After seven years, there are still many problems haunting the SBL, including management and marketing for the seven teams and the league, inconsistent officiating, the venue issue, the lack of sponsorship and decreasing interests of local fans.

The SBL and these teams have only themselves to blame because they always spent time to argue the little things rather than sitting down to discuss the vision, plans and future of this league. I love to describe them as street vendors who try to make as much as possible here and there and don’t think about tomorrow, instead of serious owners who want to build a brand and a business that lasts 100 years.

Saving money has always been their No.1 priority as well. Hiring extra guys? Salary promotion? Building practice facilities? You can just forget them all.

However, these guys figure that since the SBL is the top domestic league and basketball has always been one of the top two sports (baseball is the other), they can ask for a high price with the TV stations on broadcast rights. But the only reason for ESPN Taiwan to sign the right is to fill up its airtime. That’s all.

To solve all these problems, Mao Kao-wen, the newly-elected CTBA president, has to make things happen. After all, CTBA is the driving force behind not only the SBL, but also the development of Taiwanese basketball. But it has been incompetent and dysfunctional for most of the last 20 years.

This will be the first time in the last 20 years that the CTBA president does not own a domestic team, so I guess we can at least have some neutrality here.

Taiwanese players finish season in China

Lin Chih-chieh had 8 points and 4 rebounds in Game 3 of the Chinese CBA semifinal between Zhejiang Lions and Xinjiang, a 98-89 Zhejiang loss as the Lions was swept by Xinjiang 3-0 for the second straight year in the playoffs.

Lin is scheduled to return to Taiwan this week but is uncertain to rejoin Tawan Beer for the SBL playoffs. According to the CTBA, citing FIBA regulation, Lin is not allowed to play for teams in different countries in a single season, but TB said it’s going to appeal.

Lin was the best Taiwanese player in China this year. Still, his average was down, averaging 11.7 points, 4 rebounds and 2.9 assists in 34 minutes.

Chen Hsin-an had a disappointing season with Dongguan due to injuries. He averaged only 2.4 points in 19 games and was not a regular starter.

Performance of other players in China:
Yen Hsin-shu (Shanghai): 0.9 points in 24 games.
Hsu Hao-cheng (Shanxi): 2.7 points in 23 games.
Lin Kwan-lun (Shanxi): 3 points in 3 games.

Honestly, I don’t think these players went to China to "challenge a tougher competition level" like they had claimed. They went there to make more money and could care less about their playing time.

Nobody can fault them with making more money. After all, they are professional players who make a living by playing basketball. But seeing their miserable playing time in China is simply unbearable.