In the offseason, the two core members of Ren Junwei and Franklin were sent away, almost no one was optimistic about the prospects of Shanxi this season, even if the old acquaintance, the old coach Yang Xuezeng, who helped the Sichuan men's basketball team win the first championship in team history, returned again, but in the absence of suitable ingredients, the chef could not make a feast. However, at the end of the first stage, Shanxi achieved a good result of 9 wins and 4 losses, temporarily ranking eighth in the whole league, which is indeed somewhat unexpected. Under the leadership of the new Waifield, the whole team also mainly played team basketball, ranking fourth in the league with 26.6 assists, a total of 6 players scored in double figures, in addition to Ge Zhaobao, Yuan Shuai, Yan Pengfei, Xing Zhiqiang, these veterans have stepped forward one after another, and Zhang Ning, the former core of Peking University, who was selected by Shanxi with the 8th pick in the first round last season, also ushered in a significant improvement this year.
After being selected by Shanxi last year, Zhang Ning, known as the "Great Devil", did not integrate into the intensity of the CBA in the early stage, was not trusted by the then coach Ding Wei, and was even sent to the development league, for a player like him who once served as the absolute core of cuba, the mood was more or less affected. However, in the second half of the season, Zhang Ning also gradually found his position in the team - a 3D player, ending his first CBA season with an average of 7.6 points, 2.5 rebounds and 1.3 assists per game. After Yang Xuezeng entered the main Shanxi this season, he also began to reuse Zhang Ning, and in the opener with the new army Ningbo, he scored 13 points, 5 rebounds and 6 assists, gaining the full trust of the coaching team in one fell swoop.
In the following games, Zhang Ning also maintained a stable double-digit score, and in the case of inside and outside, he also raised his defensive ability to a new level. There are even 2 games to get the starting burden, on November 6, a match with the Shandong men's basketball team, Zhang Ning cut a new season-high 25 points, seems to have fully adapted to the intensity of the CBA. In the first 13 games, he averaged 12.2 points, 3.7 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game in 28.5 minutes of playing time, and the three shooting rates reached 56.8%, 41.2% and 79.2%, respectively, which set a career high.
As the main rotation of Shanxi at present, Zhang Ning has completely gained the trust of coach Yang Xuezeng this year, from the core playing style of the college period to the current gradual adaptation to the 3D type of play of a role player, thanks to Zhang Ning's own changes, he can survive in the league, if he still wants to have a goal in his hand like in college, mastering the absolute ball, in the CBA environment, it is obviously unrealistic, because not only to face and a group of veterans to compete for the opportunity to shoot, Foreign aid is the main core of the main attack, if he can not change his playing style, he can only be eliminated by the league.
After being selected by Shanxi last season, there were questions about Zhang Ning's inability to gain a foothold in the CBA, but he did not care about it, knowing that he could only use practical actions to break these cynicisms, rather than to do some meaningless verbal disputes with them. So this season, Zhang Ning has strengthened his projection while being more aggressive on the defensive end than before. As early as the pre-season match with Jiangsu Kendia, Zhang Ning was hit by his brow bone because of the fierce confrontation with his opponent on the field, and then he was sent to the hospital for treatment, and according to the Shanxi team doctor, Zhang Ning stitched up to 16 stitches in the brow bone position without injecting anesthesia.
It is with such bloodiness that Zhang Ning has completely incarnated into the "Big Devil" in the official regular season, far more decisive and resolute than before in handling the ball, and because of the full confidence of Yang Xuezeng's guidance, he is not afraid of making mistakes on the field, his average turnover this season has dropped to 1.3 times, but because of his strong defense, the number of fouls has increased greatly, and he currently has the tenth average of 3.3 fouls per game in the league. If Zhang Ning needs to improve something in the next stage, it is undoubtedly his control of fouls, and if he really encounters foul trouble at the rise of the fight, it is very passive for himself and Shanxi. But in any case, Zhang Ning's overall performance in the first stage really won the proof for himself with practical actions.