If anyone were to ask, which CBA team is the biggest dark horse of the season? I believe that everyone will vote for the Shanxi team.
Due to the club's poor financial situation, Shanxi sent super foreign aid Franklin and local strength interior lineman Ren Junwei to Shanghai Jiushi this season. The departure of the 2 absolute main players has made many fans think that this season's Shanxi team will begin to completely collapse.
However, what is unexpected is that this season's Shanxi team has been soaring all the way, and as of the 16th round of the league, they have achieved a good result of 12 wins and 4 losses in the league.
It is worth mentioning that they just beat CBA overlord Guangdong in the last round of the league. In this round of the league, Shanxi defeated Shenzhen, which ranked second in the league.
From the overall strength of the two teams, the Shanxi team is obviously slightly inferior to the Shenzhen team. But as soon as this game came up, the Shanxi team gave the Shenzhen team a head-on blow with its own tough performance, and the two teams played a 29-draw draw in the first quarter. At the end of the half, Shanxi also led Shenzhen by 3 points at 52-49.
After the start of the second half, Shanxi's offensive attack became more intense, and at one point it led Shenzhen by more than 10 points. However, Shenzhen's second-place finish in the league was not in vain, and they began a Jedi counterattack in the fourth quarter. After a wave of offensive climax, Shenzhen team caught up with the score. The Shanxi team also withstood the pressure and pulled the score to a 104-104 draw before the end of the game.
After entering the extra time, The Shanxi team once again occupied the advantage on the field, they used their more energetic physical strength to suppress the Shenzhen team, and finally defeated the Shenzhen team with a 6-point advantage, ushering in their 5 consecutive league wins.
The Shanxi team was able to achieve such good results this season, and coach Yang Xuezeng was indispensable. Under his coaching, Shanxi's attack played more reasonably, and although there were no real big players in the team, every player could become a scoring point for the team.
At the same time, Yang Xuezeng also successfully activated two foreign assistants in the team, Feld and Simmons. The excellent performance of the two has driven the attack of the entire team and made great contributions to the shanxi team's consecutive victories.
In contrast, Shenzhen team, although the team's small foreign aid Booker played quite well, in this game he got 37 points, 7 rebounds, 11 assists and 2 steals, but such a bright data can not help the team to win.
Because Booker's offensive efficiency is not high, Booker shot 7 of 17 from 2 points and 6 of 18 from 3-point range in the whole game, with an overall shooting rate of less than 40%.
Of course, fans can't be too harsh on Booker, after all, his annual salary in Shenzhen is only about $500,000.
Compared to Booker, another foreign player in the Shenzhen team, Salinger, is almost three times the annual salary of Booker at $1.4 million, but his performance this season is clearly not matched by such a high salary.
In this game, Salinger's performance on the field can be described by the word "sleepwalking". In this campaign, Salinger only had 4 points and 3 rebounds. In the last game between Shenzhen and Guangsha, Salinger only had 4 points and 5 rebounds. With such a poor performance, it's hard to believe that Salinger was the MVP of last season's Korean KBL League.
After returning to Shenzhen, Salinger has played 3 games for the team, and he can only get 4 points, 3.7 rebounds and 1 assist after averaging 11.3 minutes per game. It can be said that Salinger's performance did not meet the expectations of the Shenzhen team for him.
This season's Shenzhen team has played the best performance in recent years, and with the strength of the Guangdong team beginning to decline, they have a very good chance of achieving better results in the playoffs. The performance of the big foreign aid Salinger is obviously dragging the team's hind legs, in such a situation, the Shenzhen team should start to consider the replacement of foreign aid.
However, due to the special circumstances of the past 2 years, it is not easy for CBA clubs to bring in a suitable foreign player. Therefore, the Shenzhen team first needs to dig up potential internally to improve the team's internal strength.
In addition, if Salinger is slow to find his form, the Shenzhen team can consider cutting him. In this way, even if the team can't find the right foreign aid, it can at least save a lot of foreign aid salaries and prepare for a restart next season.