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Ticked Off by China’s Global Failure, Yao Ming Goes Off at National League After Disappointing Feat

Published 10/14/2023, 2:43 PM EDT

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It’s been 13 years since Yao Ming retired from the NBA, but he has never stayed away from basketball. Since 2017, he has been the president of the Chinese Basketball Association. But he could not elevate Team China in the past few years. In fact, the team has been falling in rank over the last four years.

With the end of the Asian Games basketball games, people do not see China as a prominent force in the basketball world. After the team’s last match, Yao Ming called out the system for the team’s failure as a whole.

Yao Ming is not happy with the Asian Games result

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The Chinese basketball team ended with a bronze medal win in the Asian Games. After the win for the bronze medal, the Houston Rockets legend accused his players of slacking.

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He realizes the skill gap between China and the rest of the world. Having gone toe-to-toe with Shaquille O’Neal during his career, he knows exactly how the rest of the world plays.

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Without open-mindedness and the implementation of new methods, they would never catch up to the world. Yao let it be known to everyone that major changes are required within the team to make it a team worthy of contention. This does not just include the team, but the entire basketball community in China.

Yao Ming said, “The pain comes from the huge gap between China’s basketball and world basketball It should be said, our foreign exchanges have not gone smoothly in recent years. Even so, we are still thinking of ways to go out – we cannot stop communicating with the world.

China lost to the eventual winners, the Philippines after they made a last-second shot at the buzzer. Yao said that the recent defeats are sure to let people understand the difference between them and the rest of the world.

Yao expressed his displeasure with the National League

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The system in China is not enough for the basketball culture to advance, according to Yao Ming. He used a small country like Serbia as an example. Such a small country has so many coaches, and they are allowed to go to other places to coach, but he doesn’t know why the Chinese coaches are not going to other places.

He said, “From 2019 to now, our contact with the international community and even society has decreased. Indeed, we have done very little.”

Yao added that if he had not gone to the NBA back in 2022, he would have just stayed with everyone else and would be just a coach in China. After failing to qualify for the Paris Olympics next year, this result keeps adding to the failures of the team.

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What do you think of Yao Ming’s comments? Let us know below.

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Written by:

Rijin Varghese

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Rijin is an NBA writer at EssentiallySports. He has been following the NBA for over a decade. He likes to learn about the nuances of sports, understand every player's contribution to a team, and also learn the logic behind player signings and team building.
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Edited by:

Caroline Joseph