When Guangdong swept the triple crown with a double small outside, the CBA small ball wind wave was like a typhoon crossing, but in the country of Tianfu far from the ocean, Sichuan unexpectedly threw out two tall towers, the town shoudu Jiangyan, the majestic Qingcheng Mountain.
The CBA currently has three teams using doubles, namely Kay Verde and Jonathan Simmons' Shanxi, Kenny Burton and Taylor Rochester's Tianjin, and Jeremy Lin and Jonathan Gibson (Barry Brown Jr. is not yet registered) in Beijing. In addition, Liaoning, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Shandong, Beikong, Ningbo and other teams use the more traditional one big and one small double foreign aid.
Sichuan did not go the usual way, after having Hamad Haddadi, who was 218cm tall, he signed Sterling Manley (214cm registered in the CBA) with a height of 211cm. The last team in the league hoarded two big foreign aides, or the 19-20 season of North Control, but the team was three foreign aides at the time, with Kyle Fogg in the backcourt, in addition, Beijing had a brief combination of Pai Youdu and Justin Hamilton when Jeremy Lin was on leave.
Before the revision of the rules for foreign aid, it was not uncommon for the double foreign players to be paired, and Sichuan had had Haddadi and Josh Smith partnered. The most famous in league history is probably the 07-08 season finals against both sides, Liaoning two more than 210cm inside liners, Jamal Sampson and Oulumid Oudejie, Guangdong foreign aid also more than 2 meters, Jason and Ramund Murray.
However, after the foreign aid rule was changed to 4 sessions and 4 person-times, the double outside was still the first time to see.
Last season, Sichuan and Haddadi continued the frontier, the best foreign aid in the history of the Sichuan military, the MVP of the 15-16 season finals, and the first hero of the championship. In the playoffs of the year of the championship, Haddadi averaged 43.5 minutes per game, averaging 22.2 points, 17.8 rebounds, 3.8 assists, 1.6 steals and 1.9 blocks per game, and the last person to lead the team to the CBA championship with such a terrible data was Yao Ming in 2002.
Sichuan does have Haddadi's instructions, and he played for Xinjiang and Nanjing for the two years after he left Sichuan in 2018, and his performance was far worse than that year, and he did not appear in the playoffs. Back in Sichuan, he averaged 17.5 points, 13.5 rebounds, 6.2 assists and 1.6 blocks per game, five triple-doubles in a single season, the first 20+20+15 in CBA history, and the team successfully reached the playoffs.
Haddadi has been with this team for 6 seasons, most of his CBA career has been here, the reason why he played freely is precisely because Sichuan trusted him, his position in the offensive and defensive position and the championship year has hardly changed, which is the basis for his rapid display of power.
Haddadi is still outstanding this season, even with higher assists than last season, averaging 7.4 per game. However, he is 36 years old after all, and he is still more than 4 months away from turning 37, but he has almost played the first two games of the season. The sheer physical load has caused his shooting percentage to slip to a career-low 40 percent, with 5.6 turnovers per game.
In order to continue the team's internal power and protect Haddadi, Sichuan signed a big foreign aid.
Sterling registered 214cm tall, weighs 115KG, from the NCAA University of North Carolina. Born in 1998, Sterling also comes from a sports family, the most famous of which is his uncle Willie Slovo, who won the NCAA football championship for Michigan in 1952 and became the first African-American black quarterback in NFL history in 1953.
In 2013, he entered Pickerington High School, where NBA Indiana Pacers player Carris LeVert graduated a year ago and Houston Rockets player Jeshaun Tate was his senior and teammate. In his senior year, he averaged 12 points, 7.4 rebounds and 3 blocks per game, and in his senior year, he averaged 16.1 points and 8.5 rebounds per game, and in 2017, he joined North Carolina, which had just won the NCAA championship.
Tony Bradley, Kennedy Meeks, Isaiah Hicks and others in the North Carolina championship lineup went to challenge the NBA, and Sterling and Garrison Brooks, Brandon Haffman, Walker Miller and other first-year interiors joined. Interestingly, Sterling is the highest on the team, but he is not a center forward, but a main No. 4 position.
Sterling's four-year NCAA coincided with the final days of the coaching of legendary veteran Roy Williams, and although North Carolina still sent NBA players such as Cameron Johnson, Kobe White, and Cole Anthony, the team's record was only in the Round of 16 at most. Sterling played only 10 minutes per game in his freshman year and was able to cut 5.4 points, 3.6 rebounds and 0.7 blocks, but his sophomore missed half a season due to sore right knee.
In his junior year, he was reimbursed for left knee surgery for the season.
In the end, Sterling's senior season also played only 4 games, and then helplessly ended his NCAA career. No one went in the 2021 draft, but at the Las Vegas Summer League, the Chicago Bulls gave him a chance, and Sterling, who was suffering from injuries, wrote in his personal social life that "dreams become reality."
More than 4 months later, he had packed up and embarked on a new battlefield, and the CBA became his first professional league officially played. Facing Xinjiang on January 2, he made his debut, but the career announcement style was a bit cruel, the first attack was three-dimensional, the first defense was eaten by Lutubra's basket, and the second attack was unstable under the basket and then lost.
Further later, Sterling received a pass in midfield and was directly snatched, fouled by Arnette Mortree under the basket, did not receive the bottom line ball, and watched his teammates be sandwiched by the double bag to form a scramble. In the past two years, due to injury and no systematic competition, coupled with the poor health after isolation, the impact of the FIBA system on the inside line, Sterling has tried to mobilize himself on the field, but he still seems a little helpless.
However, his ability to adjust is good, and he has hit 4 goals in five shots since then, and he has 11 points and 5 rebounds in the 16 minutes of his debut. After gradually familiarizing himself with the defensive habits of his teammates, he was more disciplined in his defense on the inside, delivering 3 blocks, height and arm span combined with a good bounce, enough to keep the basket down.
Interestingly, he had at least 3 or more rebounds in his debut and sent long passes directly to the front and 2 assists. Sichuan's short-term goal for him is to buy rest time for Haddadi, and in the long run, Sichuan does not want to find a young Haddadi, so it seems that Sterling and Hada Dubai are good to learn a pass.
In the second game against Guangzhou, Sterling once again contributed 11 points, 4 rebounds and 2 blocks in 16 minutes, and his performance was remarkable. His problem is that the physical confrontation is not online, the feeling of professional games needs to be cultivated, the advantage is not to play randomly, like to pass, the offensive action is still solid, after the run-in, it should be a good foreign aid.
In the final analysis, Sichuan does have the need to use the double large foreign.
The most important reason is that Su Ruoyu suffered a knee injury on the inside line, and the official current estimate of recovery time is as long as 10 weeks. In order to stabilize the team's second lineup, Sichuan chose to use big foreign aid as the base of the lineup, share haddadi's physical pressure, and control rebounds.
Sichuan's basket shot ratio is 46.4%, ranking third in the league, the top two are Guangdong and Shanghai, which have a lot of conversion offense, but the basket shooting rate is only 56.5%, the league is second to the bottom. That is to say, Sichuan is actually the team that relies most on basket attack in the league position war, but their basket attack efficiency is very poor, which is directly related to the lack of Haddadi in the front section and the low efficiency of Haddadi in the back section.
To ensure the smooth progress of the interior attack, this is the core point of the Sichuan lineup, to maintain a low attack and defense for 48 minutes, the old Haddadi naturally can not hold up, plus Sterling can continue the whole field. Using the two games since the double big foreign, there are a large number of low-post one-on-one in the Sichuan match, and the new foreign assistant Sterling frequently asks for positions near the penalty area, and this playing style will continue in sichuan's subsequent matches.
No matter how strong the inside line is, it will eventually need a reliable outside partner to pass the ball, so the game to beat Guangzhou, there are still more than 4 months to turn 36-year-old Han Shuo played 48 minutes, 11 out of 6, 19 points, 5 rebounds, 16 assists and 1 steal. He not only has to help Sterling adapt to the team, but also to accumulate on-field advantages with Haddadi, coupled with Zhang Hui's injury, there is really no way but to let Han Shuo play more.
In the next three games, Sichuan will face Beikong, Shandong and Ningbo in a row, all of which are excellent teams in the inner line or have big foreign aid, and the double big foreign team will be tested. The degree of integration between Sterling and the team, whether Haddadi's efficiency will be revived due to better physical fitness, whether Han Shuo and young defenders can control the overall situation, sichuan to play characteristics is not easy.
There are many stories of CBA going with the flow, but to rise you must have the right style of play, don't be afraid to try before you find it.