Huang Wenwei stood on the free throw line, and the time seemed to return to Jakarta in 2018, the legend of China's grassroots basketball winning the Asian Games, and it is still passionate to look back.
At the Grossa Punta Cano Sports Centre, the gold medal was within reach of the 2018 Asian Games Jakarta Three-Man Men's Basketball Final. However, the Chinese men's basketball team trailed South Korea in the final moments, with only 4.4 seconds left, and captain Huang Wenwei won the opportunity to get on the free throw line. It was the last glimmer of life, and everyone was sweating in their palms and their hearts were up to their throats.
Huang Wenwei, then 23 years old, was not from a professional basketball club in the CBA or NBL, he graduated from the Guangzhou Institute of Physical Education a year ago, and then stayed on to become an ordinary teacher in the basketball department of the Sports Training College. Not only him, but his teammate Xiao Hailiang is an ordinary employee of the Propaganda, Culture and Sports Bureau of Mayong Town, Dongguan City, and Zeng Bingqiang has just graduated from Guangdong University of Technology.
Chen Gong is the only player in the team who is close to professional, and he signed with the Wuhan Contemporary Professional Basketball Club, which was just established half a year ago, but he has not yet set foot on the professional field. It was a real grassroots team, and before that, not many people really believed that such a "rabble" could win the Asian championship for the Chinese men's basketball team.
Even, when the Dongguan Ma Chung team composed of Huang Wenwei, Xiao Hailiang and Zeng Bingqiang won the championship in the 2018 "I want to go to the Olympics" national three-person basketball tournament ring, people would only associate it with a program of "I want to go to the Spring Festival Gala", and then show a contemptuous and polite embarrassing smile.
In the basketball world, the gap between amateur grassroots and professional players has always been considered insurmountable, the so-called art has a specialty, people often say do not use your hobby to challenge other people's jobs. However, the basketball world can embark on a professional path is ultimately a very small number of players, in the five-on-five full-court rush, the weaknesses of the grassroots are constantly magnified, the gap is becoming more and more difficult to fill.
What does grassroots basketball look like?
Before landing on the Asian Games, Huang Wenwei studied at the famous basketball school Dongguan No. 4 Middle School in middle school, and he also dreamed of playing in the CBA and entering the national team, but that was only a dream after all. After graduating from high school, he was admitted to the coveted Guangzhou Institute of Physical Education, and was able to continue his sports career, and in the four years of college, he followed the team to compete in the National Sports School Cup (in 2017, he was reversed by Sun Tonglin's Shandong, and ranked second, and 4 years later, Zeng Fanri led Cantonese to win the championship), usually appeared in various folk amateur competitions, and played the Guangdong Provincial Basketball League in the summer.
Not only him, Xiao Hailiang in Ma Chung and Zeng Bingqiang, who played in CUBA, are all running hard within their own capabilities, which is the basketball story of most grassroots players, it is a dream, but it is also life. Olympic basketball to enter life, contact more people's dreams, so in 2017, three-on-three became an official Olympic event.
Since that year, Huang Wenwei, Zeng Bingqiang and Xiao Hailiang have become the iron triangle of Dongguan Ma Chung, standing out from many professional and semi-professional players and winning the 2017 National Games three-on-three men's youth championship for Guangdong. They embarked on a flight to Jakarta with incredible steps, dressed in national team jerseys, which were the wishes they had thought and broken as teenagers, and life gave those who worked hard a big hug.
In the Asian Games final, Huang Wenwei stood on the free throw line, and a few minutes later, the first men's three-on-three gold medal in the history of the Asian Games will be born, when South Korea, thousands of miles away, may have begun to celebrate, and they put half of the gold medal in their pockets. But 23 Huang Wenwei created an earth-shattering reversal, two penalties were dragged into overtime, the key ball must be hit, killed, won the championship, fell to the ground is exhausted, but also crazy.
On top of Asia, they did it, the grassroots players did it, the slightly determined dream power that sustained them to the summit. Four 23-year-old boys, not knowing what the future will look like, the professional arena is out of reach, the basketball career may be fleeting, and their charge is fearless, because they feel that maybe the peak is this moment.
Three years later, Huang Wenwei was in adversity again and stood on the free throw line again.
This is the battlefield of the 2021 National Men's Three-man Basketball Super League, and Huang Wenwei is a Guangdong Chimelong three-person basketball club based on the Dongguan Mayong team. Contrary to expectations, three-person basketball is not a child's play, and although they have waited for three years, they are indeed close to entering the profession and becoming the first three-person basketball professional players in China.
In their first game in the Super League, they met a powerful team shanghai Shangshi Longchuang, with the former three men's basketball national players Zheng Yi and Liu Hengyi, the national team sparring Slovenian foreign aid Milan Kovačević, former CBA players Leng Zhenduo and Li Yaoqiang, and Huang Wenwei's teammate Chen Gong at the Asian Games.
Two strong three-basket teams contributed to the most exciting and anxious game on the first day of the Super Third League, Shanghai, which was 4 points behind, tied the score consecutively, and in the last 40 seconds, Milan passed Leng Zhenduo to rebound the score, followed by Zheng Yi stealing and taking away the ball. But Shanghai failed to seize the opportunity, Milan had arrived 12 seconds before the basket shot, and Guangdong, who was leading most of the time, encountered a difficult situation of 27.8 seconds behind by 1 point.
At the critical moment, Huang Wenwei burst into the basket, and the ball spun around on the basket a few times before slowly falling. The score was tied, but Shanghai still had a chance to attack steadily, but Milan and Zheng Yi were not careful enough to hand over, Huang Wenwei successfully snatched, and then, Zheng Yi, who was very unhappy in three baskets this year, made a mistake and reached out to pull and was blown.
In just 22 seconds, the game was dramatically reversed, which is also the charm of three-player basketball. Huang Wenwei did not have a soft hand at the free throw line, just like he did in the Asian Games, two free throws, the first to play 21 points, directly ending the game, which is Guangdong Chimelong's first victory in the official game of the professional arena.
What was once unattainable for professional basketball is now at their feet.
In 3 years, China's three-person basketball has undergone earth-shaking changes, and after winning the Asian Games, the pace of exploring professional leagues has been taken. In 2019, the National Three-Person Basketball Club Elite Tournament officially hosted by the Chinese Basketball Association made a brilliant debut, although it was an amateur competition, but in essence the club's participation form was close to professional, and since then, in 2020, it has expanded from 8 to 12 stops.
The original name of the Super Three League was the 2021 National Three Basketball Club Elite Tournament, which the Basketball Association used as a transition season for the Chinese Three Men's Basketball Professional League to welcome the arrival of the official league next year. A total of 21 clubs registered for the league, and 18 teams competed at Baoding Station.
In addition to Guangdong Chimelong of Huang Wenwei and others, the super three have basically included the top three-man men's basketball clubs in China. Former CBA players are not rare here, Harbin Shenglong Guangdong veteran Gao Shang, Dalian Zhonggang education Liaoning veteran Wei Meng, Zhejiang Pulai Wang Tong, Li Rui, Zhou Yanxu, Wuxi Huishan Song Jianhua, Macau Dafeng Wolf Gu Yuezhuo, Zhang Youwei, Shanghai Jiushi Zhang Chunjun, Luo Xudong, Huang Xu, Shenzhen Century set sail Meng Xiang, Guo Xiaopeng, Han Yifeng, Li Xiang and so on.
A group of players with great fame in the grassroots basketball circle have gathered one after another, Qu Yang, known as the "first quarterback of wild balls", and Zhu Yuanbo, the "first dunk of folk basketball", played for Shanghai Chongming, Chen Guohao, the cuba inner killer, played for Guangdong Chimelong, the strongest CBA draft Wu Xingrui played for Zhejiang Jieying, and Sun Weixin, known as the "first demon guard of wild balls", joined the Macao career.
Countless fans in the basketball variety show also came, "sharpshooter" Xiang Zhichao and "wild bull" Wang Zengjie (former Fujian player) wearing Zhejiang Jieying battle shirt, "Huashi Giant Shark" Sun Haiqing and "Zhejiang Da James" Guo Hanyu played for Shanghai Chongming, Peking University strong forward Li Lin played for Changzhou Kaida Heavy Industry. In addition, Ma Xuepeng of Tsinghua University joined Guangxi Lufeng, and Li Haonan, an Olympic three-basketball player, played for Dezhou Deda, Shandong.
Three-on-three professional leagues, while still a niche, have long since begun to be explored around the world.
In 2012, the Spanish B3 3-on-3 professional basketball league was established to promote the 2014 Basketball World Cup, with more than 215 teams registering during the six-month game. The United States had big league BIG 3 in 2017, but that was not a grassroots world, and only retired players could participate, like the "Sunset Cup" of the NBA nursing home.
Japan began the 3×3premier league in 2014, and initially there were very few teams, until 2017, when three-player basketball officially entered the Olympic Games, when the league was expanded to 32 teams. The Philippine PBA3×3 leagues officially started last month, with 6 sub-tournaments and 1 final, a total of 13 teams.
The Super Triple League will be the starting point of china's three-person professional basketball league dream, which seems a little late compared to the rest of the world, but it is also timely, seemingly inconspicuous, but it can also connect the roots and professional barriers. The trend of three-person basketball is to close the distance, the whole people to revel, to hold the forgotten dream, but also to undertake the mission of basketball.
In the world of three-person basketball, in the time and space of the 21-point system, the unknown grassroots, professional athletes from professional leagues, the fierce players who gallop on the field, the popular Internet celebrities of basketball variety shows, no matter what identity, no matter how different the basketball space used to be, in this side of the world, the street scuffle, the fun is endless.
The grassroots heroes of the Asian Games have returned, and the places they have walked through are no longer deserted.