Sony Wims, 35, Hamad Haddadi, 36, and Lester Hudson, 37, veterans are whipping their guns, and the new season of the CBA will be discussed.
A few days ago, the days when the 37-year-old LeBron James was drafted by the NBA as a professional player was more than half his current age. The 40-year-old "Eagle King" Joe Johnson returned to the NBA after three seasons away and joined the Celtics who selected him 20 years ago.
Only five players in the CBA were born in or before 1986: Hudson in 1984, Haddadi and Taylor Rochester in 1985, and Weems and Han Shuo in 1986. Rochester has returned to Tianjin this season, Han Shuo is a local player, and in the past few years, it has been the three elders who have crossed the league.
In the 09-10 season, the three played in the NBA at the same time.
Wiems was selected by the Bulls with the 9th pick in the second round of the 2008 NBA Draft and has since been sent to the Nuggets. When he was a child, he was considered by doctors to be unable to walk normally because of his rabbit feet, and relying on long-term correction and exercise, he later became the long jump and high jump champion of Arkansas, and won the National Junior College Championship in 2006 and the NCAA Dunk Contest champion in 2008.
He scored 31 points in the first round of the 2008 Mad March National Championships, 12-of-14, eliminating Eric Gordon and Jordan Crawford at Indiana University. He briefly teamed up with Aaron Iverson, helping JR Smith and Demar DeRozan in the NBA Dunk Contest, where he won three consecutive VTB titles for CSKA Moscow in Europe after the NBA shutdown.
In 2017, he was 31 years old when he came to the CBA where "even if I average 40 points per game doesn't make me better." His personal skills are indeed difficult to advance by leaps and bounds, but he can find a team that suits him, so in 2018 he transformed into the South China Tigers, and in the rapid attack and defense directed by Du, he was like a screw, placed at the most important joint. He went on to become the MVP of the Finals, completing a three-game winning streak in yet another league.
Starting with the defeat of the national youth combination of Yi Jianlian and Tang Zhengdong in the final of the 2004 U20 Asian Youth Championship, Haddadi quickly stole the title of "Iranian Yao Ming" of Jaber Rozbahani, who is more than 2 meters tall. In 2004, he was unsuccessful in the NBA Draft, he was dormant in Iran for 4 years, defeated Lebanon by 31 points in the final of the Asian Championship in 2007, won the first Asian championship of the men's basketball adult team in Iranian history, and joined the Memphis Grizzlies in 2008, a landmark NBA player in the history of Iranian basketball.
In 5 seasons, 152 NBA regular season games, 13 playoff games, Haddadi has not been able to reach the peak of the NBA's stars like Yao Ming, but the NBA arena he has reached is dazzling enough. When he left the Grizzlies and went to the sun for a while, he decisively ended his NBA journey, and he has paid for 5 years for his dream, and then he wants to put the peak of his career on another court.
The enthusiasm and hot pot of the Kingdom of Heaven retained Haddadi's heart.
He came to the CBA in 2013, and 3 years later, at the age of 31, he was a good year, bringing a championship to the Sichuan men's basketball team. He has left 3 times, but played for Sichuan 4 times, and the sweetness of the championship and the MVP of the finals is still the best memory in his heart, and only here can he achieve mutual achievements.
"My dream is to play at NCAADI and I will do anything that makes my dream come true." This is what Hudson said as a teenager, the dream allowed him to return to school, strive to be strong, in the 07-08 season, he had 25 points, 12 rebounds, 10 assists and 10 steals in a single game, becoming the first male athlete in the NCAA to win a quadruple-double. Averaging 27.5 points, 7.9 rebounds, 4.2 assists and 2.3 steals per game in the second season, he became the first player of the Year in the Ohio Valley League in the history of the University of Tennessee Martin.
Realizing the dream of the NBA, he also quickly said goodbye, he met teammate Yi Jianlian in the Wizards, and then joined the CBA across the ocean, winning the championship for Guangdong in the 10-11 season when he was 27 years old. The fame of "Ha Shen" gradually became loud, but his career was quite bumpy, changing 5 teams in 5 years, from Xinjiang to Liaoning, and breaking the finals for 3 consecutive years.
He won the first triple-double in the history of the CBA Finals, and he also had a big heart kill, but he and Liaoning came so late to the top. In the 17-18 season, Liaoning finally won the championship, and Hudson finally won his finals MVP, when he was 34 years old, and a year later, he parted ways with Liaoning.
Last season, he led Shandong to the final four, which was almost 37-year-old "Lao Ha".
The old Ji Futuo, determined to be in a thousand miles, the three elders of the CBA have entered the twilight of their careers, although the prestige is not reduced, but it is inevitable that they will encounter the problem of age. Hudson was pressed by the young and strong Zhao Rui in the playoffs, Haddadi let the opponent Liu Chuanxing take away the victory, and the youngest of the three, Weems, won the end, and it was not all smooth sailing.
Last season's Weems had the feat of beating Beijing Shougang in the playoffs, but his overall shooting percentage dropped from 53.5% the previous year to 40.2%, and after the Finals, only 18 of 48 shots were shot, while the number of fouls soared to an average of 3 per game. In order to ensure his physical fitness on the court, Du also had to break up his playing time, averaging 30.7 minutes per game is also a new playoff low.
The Finals MVP has long been the focus of the team's defense, and Weems faces the dual pressure of age and targeted defense. The veteran has his own way, in the opponent's way of playing, the playoff Weems does not care about efficiency, he tends to improve the rebounding rush and kill, after the Finals, he and Kyle Fogg on the free throw line courtesy exchange.
Wiems is not a top player in passing, but his ability to read defense is sometimes underestimated, or rather, this skill point is still evolving as he plays for Guangdong for a longer time. Especially after three years of running into Guangdong, he always unexpectedly delivered a large number of assists in some games.
Controlling the pace and playing in a more effective and effortless way is the best way for veterans to continue their careers. Hudson is also well aware of this, from Liaoning to Shandong, the twilight of his career to a more expensive team, his scoring efficiency has declined continuously, the shooting rate has fallen to just over 40%, I thought he would not be able to adapt, but the result is just the opposite.
After leaving Liaoning, Hudson no longer faced the problem of the distribution of the ball.
Although two years older, Hudson became the absolute first-ball dominant in Shandong, with assists soaring to 7.9 in the 19-20 season, more than twice as many as the previous season, and 6.2 last season and 7.5 in the playoffs. It is this kind of free rhythm domination that allows him to take on a lot of offensive tasks while maintaining the true color of super foreign aid.
The perfect combination of the ball organizer and the empty three-pointer is the exquisite art that Hudson is showing every game today, and although his athletic ability declines and the end of the breakthrough deteriorates, the shooting has been perfected. Last season's playoffs, 46.5 percent three-point shooting, 5 per game, 95.8 percent free throw shooting, 5.8 shots per game.
Spurs veteran Tim Duncan used to be a big basic skill, and Haddadi was not like that in the CBA. Returning to Sichuan last season, he gained more trust and became a tactical axis in the absolute sense, which is precisely his biggest feature, a slow-moving but high-quality assisting interior line that sorts out Sichuan's overall offense in a hierarchical manner, which is his instruction manual.
He averaged 6.2 assists per game last season, a career high, delivered five triple-doubles in a single season, and played the first 20+20+15 triple-double in CBA history. Facing the young insiders in the league, he went to class over and over again.
In order to make Haddadi play comfortably, Sichuan slowed down across the board, concentrating a large amount of ball power at his disposal, plus another veteran Han Shuo, the second elder of Xuan Di played the game thoroughly. Sichuan also knows the most about judging the situation and does not fight hard with strong teams, but when it encounters teams with the same slow rhythm, or young internal lines, or weaker internal lines, it will never let go of the opportunity.
The veteran tank rusted a little deeper, but the oil was still full.
Weems in the new season is unlikely to run faster than in the treble, but he is still the strongest player in the swing man position at the front guard. When he appeared in the playoffs, he still had an absolutely outstanding ability to kill when needed, and he was also the best rebounder in the same position, a hexagonal warrior suitable for Guangdong, and his sense of reading the game was still improving.
Hudson, the CBA's oldest player and the league's top scorer, only Jim Fredette averaged more than him on three-pointers per game last season and is one of the best players in the league in terms of number and quality of free throws. Haddadi's height and long arms, the top passing consciousness in the same position, are grinded from the Iranian league to the NBA to the CBA, one move at a time.
Their game has been undergoing subtle changes, slowing down, increasing the threat of handling the ball, etc., all in order to control the rhythm. They also prefer to play for a team when they return, and familiar games feel extremely precious to veterans.
The most important thing is also the individual, Weems from the childhood to fight the disease, developed a strong physique, which is also his competitive advantage among the players in the same position. Both Haddadi and Hudson are very disciplined players with absolutely excellent professionalism, which is the strength of every basketball league veteran.
The league is about to start, the wind has blown, and it is still a familiar smell.