Team China weighs up overseas upgrade to bolster Paris push

Tall task

Pursuing naturalized talents is a controversial topic within China's sports community, and is indicative of just how desperate the CBA is to secure Paris 2024 qualification. The men's team missed the Olympic tournament for the first time in history at Tokyo 2020 following a disappointing campaign at the home World Cup in 2019.

Working with a young, work-in-progress squad, Team China head coach Aleksandar Djordjevic faces a major challenge at the World Cup, with ambitious co-hosts Japan and the Philippines as well as a surging Lebanon — all bolstered by naturalized players — battling for Asia's solitary direct qualification berth.

With only four months to go before the World Cup tips off on Aug 25, Team China's internal challenges appear to be just as tough.

Towering center Zhou Qi, the backbone of the team since Yao's generation all retired, has no league games to play at the moment due to a contract dispute with the Xinjiang Flying Tigers.

Zhou, who started the 2022-23 season in Australia with the South East Melbourne Phoenix, decided in December to return to the CBA to sign with a new club, only for Xinjiang to block his release.

Citing a league rule that a club can retain a player as long as it has offered him a maximum contract to match any other offers, the Flying Tigers attempted to hang onto Zhou after his return from Australia. However, negotiations over the dispute reached deadlock.

With the team's biggest star working on his own without any club action as a grind, Yao admitted that Zhou's situation is far from ideal.

"A player's competitive form will for sure be affected if he has no high-level games to play. We do have concerns about him (Zhou) but can only hope that he maintains good enough training on his own," Yao said.

"For the World Cup, our goal will always be the same and that is to earn direct qualification for the Olympics."