Cui dealt crushing double blow

Even with his fledgling NBA career abruptly ended in the cruelest way, China's injured basketball star Cui Yongxi has refused to give up pushing for a return to the top league after being waived by the Brooklyn Nets.

Not the intense competition, not the culture gap and definitely not a torn ACL on his left knee will deter China's best NBA prospect Cui from trying to prove he belongs in basketball's promised land, even though his first attempt for a long stay in the sport's top flight has been grounded by the brutal nature of competitive sport, just as his career there was taking off.

Just four days after he sustained the injury in a G-League game representing Brooklyn's Long Island affiliate, Cui learned on Sunday that he had been cut by the Nets to make room for the franchise's new signings as part of a deal with the Golden State Warriors, just over two months after he joined the Nets, owned by Joe Tsai, chairman of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, on a two-way contract.

The 21-year-old forward remains upbeat, though, vowing to pick up right where he left off, once he's fully recovered from the knee injury.

"I have to take a long break from the court, but once I come back stronger from the injury, I will not stop pursuing my NBA dream until the last bit of my energy burns out," Cui wrote in a post on social media on Monday.

Cui tore the ligament in his left knee when he landed after going for a rebound in the second quarter of Long Island's G-League game against the Maine Celtics on Dec 11.

The Nets confirmed the diagnosis of a torn ACL two days later, and announced Cui would miss the remainder of the 2024-25 season, capping his rookie year at five appearances in the NBA, with a total of three points and two rebounds in 10 minutes of action, and six contests in the G-League.

The injury happened right after Cui put on his best performance since arriving in the States, scoring 14 points to go with four rebounds and three steals in 24 minutes off the bench against the College Park Skyhawks on Dec 9, dampening Chinese fans' budding hopes of witnessing his rise in the G-League.

"Life is about ups and downs. The injury might come down to the accumulated fatigue from the training and the travel, and what has happened has happened. No complaints," Cui said in a video posted on social media on Saturday.

"Sometimes, it's inevitable (to get injured) in professional sports. It's part of the job. I just have to face up to it with a positive mindset.

"I will prepare for the surgery and the following rehabilitation with a strong faith that my story of going up against the odds is not over yet. I am confident I can overcome the challenge," he said.

In the trade with the Warriors, the Nets sent German guard Dennis Schroder to the Bay Area, and acquired guard Reece Beekman, also a two-way player, from Golden State to make the deal work.

According to the NBA rules, each team is permitted to keep up to three players on two-way contracts on its roster during the 2024-25 regular season.

The Nets, shorthanded and in the middle of a rebuild, had to release Cui in order to add the active Beekman to its roster, which already included two-way players Jaylen Martin and Tyrese Martin.

The organization, however, has promised to arrange an ACL repair surgery for Cui within the week, conducted by the best available medical professionals, and expects a "full recovery", as stated in a previous release.

Similar injuries have seen a glittering cast of NBA stars — the latest being Dallas Mavericks' shooter Klay Thompson — sidelined for lengthy periods and struggle to return to their peak form.

Cui's Chinese agent Li Qun, however, believes a disciplined and ambitious young talent, as healthy as his client was before the injury, can come back stronger.

"It's quite a common injury for a professional basketball player. Technically, the ACL repair surgery is a very mature procedure, given successful recovery examples in the NBA and the CBA," Li, a former Chinese national team guard, said in a social media post on Sunday.

"A player of Cui's age has a very high chance of recovering his full strength should the surgery and following rehabs go as well as planned," he said.

After playing with the Guangzhou Loong Lions for two seasons in the CBA, Cui, a versatile swingman, launched the pursuit of his NBA dream last summer, but didn't get selected in the 2024 NBA Draft.

He stayed in the US to work out at trials with six different NBA teams, including the Nets, before he played in the Summer League representing the Portland Trail Blazers on an Exhibit 10 contract.

A busy offseason battling in the physically intense summer league helped the CBA's 2022-23 Rookie of the Year grow stronger and sharper, eventually earning him the two-way opportunity with the Nets.

As part of the NBA's new partnership with resort operator Sands China, announced by the league on Dec 6, the Nets will play a pair of preseason games against the Phoenix Suns in Macao in October next year.

Unfortunately, though, any excitement that Chinese fans had to root for one of their own in an official NBA game on home soil, has now evaporated.

sunxiaochen@chinadaily.com.cn