On July 2, 2021, in the Olympic Games held in Victoria, Canada, the Chinese men's basketball team lost 80:105 to the absent European champion Greece, plus the previous 79:109 loss to the host, and finally eliminated with two consecutive defeats.
For the first time since New China returned to the Olympic Games in 1984, it missed the Olympic Games.
An era that belonged to the Chinese men's basketball team was over.
From Wang Libin to Liu Yudong, from Yao Ming to Yi Jianlian. Before the Rio Olympics (fencer thunder), the flag bearers of the Chinese Olympic team were all tall and heroic men's basketball players, which is undoubtedly a major honor.
From the tenth place in the Olympic Games in 1984, to the bottom of the trough period after that, to the historic quarterfinals of the golden generation, to the two consecutive group stage breakouts after Yao Ming, especially the Opening Battle of the Beijing Olympic Games and the Mars collision with the United States team.
The former Chinese men's basketball team was once the most prominent project in the domestic men's sports, with social image and sports performance.
Unlike the men's football team that enters the Olympic Games is a victory, the men's volleyball team has not been able to enter the Olympic gate for many years. The Chinese men's basketball team for decades is not only the hegemon of Asia, but also the representative of tall, hard-working and hot-blooded in the minds of the Chinese people.
From the golden generation to the three major centers, from Wang Shipeng to the home of the home to kill Nowitzki, Germany advanced to the quarterfinals.
The former men's basketball team may not have won a medal, but they fully demonstrated China's image and influence in this most commercial and influential project in the world.
In particular, we also have Yao Ming.
He didn't just bring us the NBA's first foreign player, an All-Star center. At his peak in 2001-08, he was the most dominant center in the entire FIBA world.
2002 World Championships, Best Team Center,
2004 Olympic Games, rebounding king, scored third,
In 2006, the world championship, the scoring king, if it were not for the big Gasol who won the championship that year, he would have been positioned as a center, and the best team would have been him.
In the 2008 Olympic Games, he averaged third in points per game.
He not only let the NBA see the great shore of the Great Wall of China, but also made world basketball have to pay attention to the height of China.
His appearance also forced the national team at that time to build a team completely with him as the core. Once the outside line of the Chinese men's basketball team, Hu Weidong's elegance, Sun Jun's changeable, Zheng Wu's precision, Adi Jiang's cunning, dexterous and changeable style is unique in Asia and even the world.
However, because of the rise of Yao Ming and other three major centers and yi Jianlian and other juniors, the tactical style and personnel selection of the men's basketball team are completely focused on "tall". It seems that in basketball, as long as you are tall enough, you can solve everything.
Our luck lies in having one Yao Ming, but our misfortune lies in having only one Yao Ming.
Yao Ming quit the national team in 2008, was seriously injured in 2009, and retired in 11 years, which meant the end of an era.
After that, Wang Zhizhi and Yi Jianlian were good enough to even replace Yao Ming's role in individual fields, but the lack of core of the Chinese men's basketball team, the lack of talent, and the rigidity of technology have been exposed.
In two consecutive Olympic Games (London, Rio), the men's basketball team lost twice and finished at the bottom.
We also lost dominance of Asia, to Iran, South Korea, and even our own provincial teams.
Being able to enter the Olympic Games has become the final limit and fig leaf.
But FIBA didn't even have that last chance left for us. In addition to the host Japan, seven of the teams with the best results in the 2019 Men's Basketball World Cup (2 in the Americas, 2 in Europe, 1 in Africa, 1 in Asia and 1 in Oceania) will be placed in tokyo, and the rest will need to pass the Olympic games.
The 19-year home-grown World Cup was divided into Poland, Venezuela and Côte d'Ivoire, which was actually a bad situation. However, the men's basketball team won only the weakest Venezuela in the group stage, and in the qualifying round, it was 24th place behind Iran (23rd).
This has almost declared that it will not qualify for the Tokyo Olympics, because the opponents who lost the final tournament are more than one level stronger than the World Cup.
In addition to Greece, which is almost fully mobilized, there is Also Canada, which can be called the "second team of the United States", Slovenia, which later reached the final four in the Olympic Games, Slovenia, which has Doncic, and Serbia and Lithuania, which are the oldest european powers.
In such a life-and-death struggle, the failure of the Chinese men's basketball team with limited strength and the core Yi Jianlian is almost doomed.
In the old era, the Chinese men's basketball team, which aimed at the Olympic Games and took the four-year cycle, officially ended.
This era should have ended after the Beijing Olympics and Yao Ming retired, but we still live in the bubble boom that Yao Ming brought us. The failure of the 12th and 16th Olympic Games did not wake us up, and the loss of Asian hegemony did not make us ache.
Finally, at the World Cup held on the doorstep of 2019, we told everyone that even if we have tried our best, even if we have brewed a group that is too good to be good, even if the world does not want to see China absent, we really can't cross that door ourselves.
Until July 2 this year, the thoughts were broken and the last nail was nailed.
So has the new era really arrived?
Our best players are still the players of 19 years, and even if there is more controversy, they still need to fight for the country.
Our league is still struggling in the cold winter, with the limited level of overall competition, the huge gap between the strength of the end and the end, and the competition system that has to be adopted due to the epidemic.
Let the league, as the fundamental development, in this difficult time, think more about survival than breakthrough.
Compared with our domestic basketball, world basketball seems to have truly entered a new era.
It is no longer the pattern of the world against the United States, but more integration has become inseparable and parallel. Even the FIBA has a trend of faint catch-up, today's U.S. men's basketball team or NBA, if it can not be elite, it is difficult to maintain rule.
Emphasizing shooting, emphasizing confrontation, and emphasizing space, FIBA and NBA are both striding forward on the same path.
This has been followed by more frequent exchanges between players.
In the past three years, the MVPs of the NBA regular season have been international players (Alphabet Brother, Jokic), and the young Doncic conquered Europe and then built a great river and mountain in the NBA, and then killed seven in and seven out at the Tokyo Olympics.
And more and more national leagues not only insist on external invocation, but also want players to go out.
Spain and Turkey have both the top international basketball leagues, and there are also players who work hard in the NBA.
Africa, which we once regarded as a "cash machine", now many countries can easily pull up an "NBA wing".
Even Japan, which we never looked at, has a lotto show like Hachimura and Yuta Watanabe, who has already established himself in the NBA.
Will the men's basketball team follow the old path of men's football, being abandoned by the world at the same time, and constantly being surpassed in Asia?
Let's work together, after all, they once represented the "Chinese height".