After more than 40 days of offseason, the CBA league will finally restart on the 25th of this month. With many teams already in place, the competition in the second stage of the league will become more intense, and the content of the game will be more exciting.
However, the absence of one of the most powerful local players still makes this season's CBA league somewhat missing some flavor, he is Zhou Qi, who is known as the "Big Devil".
As we all know, due to the delay in the contract issue with the Xinjiang team, it has not been reasonably resolved. This season, Zhou Qi chose to abandon the CBA League and went to Australia to join the Melbourne Phoenix team of the Australian League.
Before playing in the World Preliminary Tournament with the national team, Zhou Qi participated in the Phoenix's 3 preseason games, and after averaging 22 minutes per game, he could get 12.3 points, 9.6 rebounds and 2.2 blocks. Its outstanding performance not only attracted the attention of a large number of Chinese fans, but also attracted scouts from many NBA teams.
After finishing two World Cup games between China and Japan, Zhou Qi also quickly returned to Australia, playing two NBL regular season games for the Melbourne Phoenix. Compared with his performance in the preseason, Zhou Qi's performance in these 2 regular season games can only be regarded as decent, averaging 8 points, 4 rebounds and 2.5 blocks per game in 2 games.
The reason why Zhou Qi did not play as well in the regular season as in the preseason, in addition to the fact that the NBL teams attach much more importance to the regular season than in the preseason, Zhou Qi's lack of confrontation ability is very easy to foul in defense is another major reason.
In the Melbourne Phoenix match against the New Zealand Spoilers, Zhou Qi suffered 3 fouls in just 6 minutes in the first half, which seriously affected his playing time.
Despite this, Zhou Qi was extremely intimidating in the defense of the Phoenix team's interior line. When Zhou Qi was on the court, it was difficult for the Players of new Zealand Saboteurs to break into the Phoenix's penalty area to score under the basket, and could only complete the attack through the mid-range shooting on the outside. And when Zhou Qi was trapped by too many fouls to play, the New Zealand spoilers players regained the advantage on the inside line.
Therefore, although Zhou Qi is relatively prone to fouls because he is not yet adapted to the NBL's blowing scale, his contribution to the inside defensive end of the Phoenix team is still very large. And this point has also been highly recognized by the NBA scouts who came to watch his game.
In response, an NBA scout said: "Zhou Qi's defensive ability is very strong, he has played a big role in the Phoenix's inner defense, I think he is now the NBL League Gobert." ”
Fans who often watch the NBA know that Gobert of the Utah Jazz is the best defensive interior player in the NBA league today. Gobert, who is 2 meters 16 tall, although his offensive ability is average, his defensive ability is the top of the NBA teams.
Now that the NBA has entered the era of small ball, the traditional high school forward is no longer valued by the teams, and Gobert, who does not have the ability to shoot from the middle and long distances, and the offensive technology is relatively rough, can gain a foothold in the NBA and can get the Jazz's super high contract, relying on his housekeeping skills - defense.
And from Zhou Qi's body, we can see some of Gobert's shadow, the offensive performance is not prominent enough, but the role in defense is particularly obvious. For Zhou Qi now, if he really wants to return to the NBA in the future, he must improve his confrontation ability by increasing his weight and learn how to further improve his interior defense ability while reducing fouls.
I believe that if Zhou Qi can continuously improve his ability in these 2 aspects through training and competition, re-joining the NBA in the future will definitely not be just a dream.