On Labor Day on May 1, 2021, Guangdong Hongyuan beat old rival Liaoning 110-103 overtime in the championship life and death battle to lift their eleventh CBA league title.
The most worthwhile benchmark in the history of the CBA league is still standing.
After the game, head coach Du Feng's tears were moving:
"In fact, this road is not easy, and many times it is not optimistic." Only we know how much we have paid. Thanks to the people who supported me in my difficult times. ”
Eleventh crown, a powerful opponent, the head coach in the post-match gaffe. When I saw Du Feng so moved that day, I immediately thought of the 1969 NBA Finals.
At 35 years old, Bill Russell, who is coach and teammate, defeated the Los Angeles Lakers 4-3 from old rivals West, Baylor and Chamberlain.
When journalist Jack Teweman interviewed him after the game, Russell, who was 35 years old and could not wear his fingers on both hands, or because of excitement, or because of fatigue, he only gasped and said "Jack..." and then said nothing, as a left-handed man, he was so tired that he could only wipe sweat with his right hand.
"Never neglect a champion's heart."
This is probably the most used self-encouragement slogan of every king's division that carries the pressure of the championship. It is only this year's Guangdong Hongyuan that once again interpreted the weight of this sentence with the final champion in front of everyone.
Your inner core and spiritual leader Yi Jianlian missed the entire season due to injury,
Your outside sharp knife, one of the two foreign aides, Marzan Brooks Achilles tendon fracture,
Opposite you is the fierce and most talented enemy in the country, the Liaoning Flying Leopard.
So the eleven crowns are close at hand, but there are still thousands of mountains and rivers to get their hands on.
First, the road to champions - have become accustomed to picking roses from thorns
"Ari, you are a little harder", "You are super high", "I ate your heart". There was a time when the most eye-catching thing about Guangdong Hongyuan's game was head coach Du Feng's "magic words", rather than the players' on-field performances.
First, during the epidemic, empty games have been insufficient.
Second, most of Hongyuan's matches are basically a one-section collapse, half-time finishing, full training.
Their game rivalry, tactical execution, and basic players are indeed much higher than most opponents.
So after losing the suspense of winning or losing, the media and the audience can only "find fun" from other places.
It's just, how do you think this came about?
Because of the epidemic and national team games, today's CBA league has been cut to seven, seven, eight, and eight, and at the same time changed from home and away system to tournament system. The CBA ushered in a long off-season, and many teams directly chose to take a holiday.
However, Hongyuan began training on the second day of the Chinese New Year. Captain Zhou Peng said: "During the training during the epidemic, we only need to look at the championship flag hanging on the training hall, and we are full of motivation, because everyone wants to take it again." ”
But how easy is it?
Everyone knows that their inner line of "Optimus Prime" Yi Jianlian can only do a wall watch, and the best performance in the regular season, Marzan Brooks (averaging 27.3 points per game) has also been reimbursed for the season.
Maybe everyone still has reservations in the regular season, but in the playoffs, everyone wants to bite the South China Tiger that has lost two sharp claws.
Especially in order to shorten the schedule and increase suspense, the first round of the playoffs is a "cliff battle" that determines the winner and loser.
The opponent is also the old enemy Beijing.
In the past few years, when Marbury led the team, the two teams fought in the finals, and last season they met in the finals.
Although there is no old horse who led the championship, nor does he have Jeremy Lin who led the team to the final last year, beijing is bloody as long as it encounters Guangdong.
No one expected that Guangdong was still 13 points behind until the fourth quarter, until it saved the suspense until the last moment with the old teammate Zhou Peng's three points and 2+1, as well as Zeng Fanri's basket. In the end, Weems shot a 3.7-second shot to win 104-103.
After passing the Shandong pass in the semifinals, they stood on the stage of the finals with their old rival Liaoning.
Guo Allen, Zhao Jiwei, Han Dejun, Zhang Zhenlin, on the fame and strength is not inferior to this Guangdong, and the former NBA tanhua show O.J. Mayo is also playing better and better in Liaoning.
In the finals, Guangdong relied most on their trump card - defense.
"Before preparing for the final, we spent four days practicing defense every day, not attacking." Du Feng revealed after the game.
Sure enough, the iron-blooded defense of Guangdong in the first game received a miraculous effect, forcing the three main players of the Liaoning team, Guo Allen, Zhao Jiwei and Han Dejun, to score a single point in the entire first half, and the whole team only scored 29 points in the second quarter.
But even so, in the end, Guangdong only won five points 88-83.
In the game of two wins in three games, winning the opening red is equivalent to winning half, but the reason why Liaoning is Liaoning is because of the courage and blood revealed in their bones.
In the second game they returned to Guangdong a 102-98, also a fight to the last minute, but this time Guo Allen 33 points, 7 boards and 4 assists, proved the gold content of the first defender.
Then there is the third life-and-death battle, which is rare in the finals in recent years, regardless of the degree of excitement and technical and tactical content.
110-103, Guangdong's championship reserve once again protected them.
It also proves once again that on the CBA field, as long as they do not fall, no team can reach the top.
Second, the way to champions - just to be a professional club
Since its inception in 1995, in the 27-year history, there have been a total of six champions.
There is a groundbreaking, quasi-national team of the Bayi Dynasty,
There is Yao Ming's shanghai shark,
There are Liaoning, which has abundant talent resources, Beijing, where Maburi is a god, and Sichuan Jinqiang, who is short-lived and can be called "CBA Kaiserslautern".
But despite the ups and downs of the tide, since entering the 21st century, only Guangdong Hongyuan has always stood at the top of the league.
In fact, Guangdong Hongyuan was established earlier than the CBA League.
On December 28, 1993, Dongguan Hongyuan Group established the first registered professional basketball club in China, Guangdong Hongyuan Basketball Club.
Hongyuan Group, founded by founder Chen Lin (deceased), is the first listed company in Dongguan and the first batch of township listed enterprises in China. He also founded the first private club in China.
Just like the southern pioneers at the head of yongli bridge in the reform and opening up, the birth of Guangdong Hongyuan doomed him to be different from the entire professional league.
Commercialized, formalized operations, they are known for being pragmatic and standardized from the very beginning. Unlike in the 1990s, when most of the country's sports teams were adapted into clubs, they may lack a natural blood connection with the local sports system, but they are also unfettered and can show their fists.
So Li Chunjiang from Liaoning came,
Du Feng from Xinjiang to Beijing came,
Zhu Fangyu from Guangxi came, a practice that was considered an outlier by many at the time, and these so-called "scattered soldiers" were also known as "mercenaries".
But that's professionalism, with players playing as a profession and clubs aiming to win and win titles.
In 1994, they were once again at the forefront of the times. Guangdong Provincial Sports Brigade and Hongyuan Group discussed cooperation and reached an agreement: Hongyuan Club represented Guangdong Province in the name of "Guangdong Hongyuan" to participate in the Shanghai Eighth Games;
The sports team retains the youth team establishment, and Hongyuan Group invests 700,000 yuan per year to cooperate with the Guangdong Provincial Sports And Sports Technology College to build a youth team, of which the player relationship, property rights, management rights, etc. are owned by Guangdong Hongyuan.
The club is responsible for the provincial sports unit's competition task, and the sports committee cedes the ownership of the most important players, allowing the club to show its fists and allowing the players to really hold the bowl of professional players.
This is the macro mode.
This partnership has persisted to this day and has benefited Macro to this day.
In the twenty-seven years of CBA history, we've seen too many complex relationships between players and clubs and sports committees. Not only has it delayed the short sports life of too many players, but also the internal friction between the three has seriously affected the image of basketball everywhere and the club's professional signboard.
Chinese basketball has been professionalized, but is the player a profession? Hard
But Guangdong Hongyuan seems to rarely have similar problems. They recruited top newcomers from all over the country, Du Feng, Zhu Fangyu, Wang Shipeng, these foundation-laying heroes, and champions such as Li Chunjiang are all "bitter people" who are not welcomed elsewhere or have limited development.
Basketball gave them a different kind of job, but Hongyuan made this really a decent career.
In 2003, with Yao Ming and Wang Zhizhi both leaving the NBA, the domestic basketball power map was rewritten, and That year Hongyuan reached the CBA Finals for the first time.
In 2004, Guangdong finally won the championship, and since then, it has embarked on a legendary journey of eight years and seven crowns.
From Li Chunjiang, Li Qun, Du Feng, Zhu Fangyu to Yi Jianlian, Wang Shipeng, and now Hu Mingxuan and Zhao Rui. Hongyuan's investment is not the highest in the league, but it is definitely the most standardized. The strength of the players is not always the strongest in each team, but the attitude and style are consistently correct.
Because Hongyuan is a club, a business, and this is their job and profession.
Let everyone in the club have a sense of belonging, identification with the team, and have a reverence for their profession, many problems are actually solved, or even self-defeating.
Third, the luck of the champion - to help local basketball enter a virtuous circle
Guangdong Hongyuan has been able to maintain a strong competitiveness for more than 20 years, relying on the hard work of the high-level coaching team and management team, and the full support given by the club's investors to ensure the healthy development of the team. Liu Kejun, vice chairman of the Chinese Basketball Association and president of the Guangdong Basketball Association, said.
A successful club is a "golden signboard" for the local sports industry and even the whole region. Just as without Liverpool Football Club many people may not know this place, just as the Bulls became synonymous with Chicago, you can not know that Madrid is the capital of Spain, but certainly know Real Madrid.
As the forefront of national reform, Guangdong is certainly more than Hongyuan's "business card". But the team's continuous success and aggressiveness have also made the sport of basketball grow into a towering tree in this land.
Hongyuan's long-term strength has driven the enthusiasm of fans, the standardized management and operation of the club, and attracted a large number of talents from other provinces to take root in the south. The full affirmation of fans and all sectors of society has further strengthened the confidence of the club to continue to invest and the government department to continue to decentralize.
The strong basketball atmosphere, enthusiastic fans and broad mass base in the province are the core factors that help Hongyuan maintain its competitiveness for a long time. The team continues to win championships, which in turn has played a role in promoting the overall development of Guangdong basketball.
Today, Guangdong has provincial basketball leagues, municipal basketball leagues, and even regular competitions at the town and village levels.
Professional clubs, sports schools, and social training institutions can all take root in this fertile land of basketball.
It is not denied that Guangdong's natural location and economic advantages are one of the factors of success, but other regions with comparable or even more superior economic levels in the country have never had similar winning teachers and business models.
There is only one champion, but if there are more clubs like Hongyuan in the land of Chinese basketball, who really regard basketball as a career, our good life may be much better.