Fields, Haslem, Payton to visit Taiwan for 3-on-3 event

Former NBA great Gary Payton, Miami Heat forward Udonis Haslem and Toronto Raptors forward Landry Fields are scheduled to visit Taiwan for NBA 3X, a FIBA-sanctioned three-on-three event, from Aug 25-26.

A maximum of 408 teams are able to register for the event which would earn them ranking points in a global ranking system, according to Bros Sports, one of the local organizers, along with NBA Taiwan and the Chinese Taipei Basketball Association (CTBA).

Apart from the three-on-three competition, a slam dunk contest, a three-point shootout and a skill challenge would also be held.

Taiwanese basketball pays tribute to late South Korean coach

Taiwanese basketball circles were shocked at the news that Chung Kwon-suk, who led Taiwan NT to the fifth place in 2009 FIBA Asia Championship, passed away after battling kidney cancer.

Chung reportedly passed away at the age of 67 on Thursday in South Korea.

A South Korean legendary coach, Chung earned his reputation as the head coach who led South Korea to Asian title in the 1997 FIBA Asia Championship, its first Asian title since 1969, with a win over China and the first berth in the World Championship in 1998.

In search of the next Jeremy Lin

Like other Asian countries, Taiwan has never stopped searching Taiwanese-born players or players with Taiwanese descent who were trained or are playing in the US to boost its basketball strength.

With the unexpected emergence and the global popularity of New York Knicks guard Jeremy Lin, it has been even more so.

The Central News Agency, Taiwan’s semi-governmental new agency, has recently reported on a new case that the Chinese Taipei Basketball Association may want to take a look at.

The story reported on Joy Burke and TJ Burke, who hailed from Arizona and are playing at Arizona State and UC Riverside, respectively.

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 25,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 9 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Former NT coach accused of extramarital affairs

Former Yulon Luxgen and Taiwan NT head coach Lee Yung-kwang was accused by his wife of having extramarital affairs, Taiwan media reported this past week, sending a shockwave through local basketball community.

According to media report, Lee’s wife filed a lawsuit against Lee, who is now an associate professor at Taipei Physical Education College, for committing adultery with a 29-year-old girl.

Confession

I’m sorry for not posting anything to the blog for almost the entire March. I visited New Zealand for 10 days for a business trip and the heavy work load had kept me from writing basketball regularly.

I begin to wonder whether I should stop posting those game stats, which took me a lot of time, because the SBL now (finally) has an efficient stats webpage where you can find anything if you can read Chinese.

The final decision has not been made yet. The most important thing is whether I will have enough time to keep writing the reports I have been writing for more than 10 years. However, I do think that there should be someone writing about Taiwanese basketball in English regularly so local basketball can be understood and recognized by English-speaking fans.

As I write now Taiwan Beer and Dacin Tigers have booked their appearances in the 2011 SBL Finals. On paper, TB is too strong to lose in a best-of-seven series, given that it features almost half of the national team lineup.

However, I have made it a habit not to support teams which only improve themselves by accumulating top players. My love goes to teams like Butler or VCU, lesser known teams or underdogs. That said, I hope Dacin can pull off an upset to make local basketball much more excited.

2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 13,000 times in 2010. That’s about 31 full 747s.

 

In 2010, there were 196 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 1689 posts. There were 603 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 29mb. That’s about 2 pictures per day.

The busiest day of the year was July 15th with 782 views. The most popular post that day was 2010 William Jones Cup tournament schedule.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were taiwanhoops.com, search.conduit.com, facebook.com, google.com, and google.com.ph.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for jeremy lin, william jones cup 2010, 2010 jones cup, william jones cup, and 2010 william jones cup.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

2010 William Jones Cup tournament schedule July 2010

2

ESPN feature on Taiwanese U.S. college player Jeremy Lin December 2009

3

Another Jeremy Lin feature from TIME.com January 2010

4

2010 Jones Cup Day 1: Lebanon rallies past Japan in final quarter July 2010

5

Stories on Jeremy Lin, Yao Ming’s charity game in Taiwan July 2010

Out of town notice and 2010 Probation Cup

I will be out of town for a trip for five days, during which the 2010 Probation Cup (Guanhu Cup) invitational tournament will be played in the eastern Taiwan city of Hualien. So I will not update this blog until Oct. 28.

Four SBL teams — Yulon, Taiwan Beer, Dacin and Bank of Taiwan — and a pair of Chinese teams – Liaoning and Sichuan — entered the six-team tournament.

The tournament has been plagued by bad weather in Taiwan as Typhoon Megi has brought around one meter of rain in eastern Taiwan over the past 24 hours.

In the first day of action Thursday, Liaoning, a team in the first division Chinese Basketball Association, pounded BOT 85-52. BOT was led by Chuan Hsiao-wen’s 13 points and Sun Huan-po’s 10 points.

Yulon Luxgen defeated Sichuan of the Chinese second division NBL 72-64 with Chou Shih-yuan pacing the team with 18 points and Lin Kuan-lun added 14. Sichuan won the NBL regular season champion with a 16-2 record this past season. However, it only finished 5th in the post-season.