Dacary Johnson + Dez Wells
Qingdao Eagles' foreign aid group CBA debut scored 50 points, but the first time of their careers was on November 15, 2015, or in the NBDL, which is the G League that Beijing player Zeng Fanbo is playing in today.
In the first game of the Oklahoma City Blues in the 2015-2016 season, the starting lineup was centered by this Johnson and the shooting guard was this Wells, and the two had 16 points, 9 rebounds and 19 points and 5 rebounds, respectively;
Since then, the two have worked together for 2 seasons on this college team, bringing the team to the finals together.
Then, parting ways, going their separate ways.
Now in the second phase of the CBA, he has played 5 games for Qingdao, the big foreign player Johnson averaged 23.7 minutes and contributed 16.0 points, 9.0 rebounds, 3.4 assists, 0.4 steals and 1.3 blocks; small foreign aid Wells was 24.3 minutes and contributed 23.0 points, 5.6 rebounds, 5.0 assists, 2.1 steals and 0.6 blocks, helping Qingdao win 3 and 4 in this stage.
Editor-in-chief | Porcelain Responsible Editor| Panpan Visual | Caixin
Team: Qingdao Eagles
Stage 1 record: 4 wins, 9 losses, 13th place
Dacari Johnson
This buddy can be described as the pride of basketball, the former National High School Student Selection ranked 7th, in 2012 participated in the FIBA U17 World Championships, unexpectedly, this is the peak of his basketball career.
After entering the NCAA naturally, the NCAA's traditional giant Kentucky Wildcats still had nearly 1/2 of the first season to start, and the second season was completely reduced to a substitute .
There is no other reason, these 2 seasons, Julius Randall, Devin Booker, Carl-Anthony Downs, Willy Cowley-Stein are the masters of others, especially his center position, the first season can still be divided from Cauley Stan 18 starts, the second season not to mention Johnson, is Cauley Stan is also completely reduced to a substitute - People Downs is the NBA's 2015 rookie;
It's not that Johnson doesn't want to compete, it's just that he can't compete, so in 2015, he used the glory of the Kentucky Wildcats to participate in the NBA Draft, although the NCAA averaged only 5.8 points, 4.3 rebounds, 0.5 assists, 0.3 steals and 0.8 blocks in the 48th pick, or was selected by the Oklahoma City Thunder with the 48th pick
- Probably, everyone thinks his Kentucky teammates are too strong, so he gets too few opportunities to perform;
But then the story is version B: the Thunder value his potential rather than immediate combat power, sent to Oklahoma City Blue for 3 seasons, averaged 23.3 points, 10.0 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game in the 2017-2018 season, and even, in the summer of 2017, was selected for the United States team to play in the America's Cup qualifiers; on performance, you can return to the NBA;
So, the following season he played in the Thunder 31 games, and 6 starts - this team had Cameron Anthony + Paul George + Russell Westbrook + Steven Adams super luxurious lineup, his NBA debut season can get such a chance is enough, unfortunately, the Thunder's season results are disappointing, the following season to strengthen the center to introduce the former No. 6 rookie Norlens Noor, but the results are getting more and more ugly, gradually scattered, And Dakari's NBA career is also this season;
The story develops here, and the theme behind it is basically: wandering.
The NBA's Thunder, along with the Orlando Magic, the Memphis Grizzlies and the NBA's development league, went back and forth for several seasons, so in the end, he decided to bring his few remaining talents to the CBA in China.
For Asia's top leagues, his talent is indeed enough, this return heralds the beginning of the fourth season at the club, before he has successfully used the Thunder veteran super giant BUFF, prehistoric behemoth-like size has created a heavy center role play, but has excellent combination of ball ability, allowing him to take what he wants on the offensive end, and last season also staged a blocked triple-double;
Qingdao Eagles have a good record.
Dez Wells
Dacari Johnson's story is well known, but Dez Wells seems to have parachuted into the CBA.
Born in North Carolina in 1992 to a former St. Augustine university player, Wells attended the Sound of God Academy in high school, teamed up with 2010 NBA rookie John Wall, who was 2 years older than him, and then transferred to Hargrave Military High School until graduation.
Although not as talented as The Senior Wall, Wells at that time also got the favor of the famous Xavier University - David West and Jordan Crawford's alma mater, the Musketeers reached the national championship that year, Wells scored 14 points and 11 rebounds in the first round, eliminated notre dame University, and sent C.J. McCollum's super dark Horse Lehigh University Mountain Eagle in the second round, running all the way to the sweet top 16 before stopping.
However, the post-match brawl in December 2011 ended with Wells' abrupt transfer to the University of Maryland in 2012, where he played small forwards, averaging 13.1 points, 4.9 rebounds, 3 assists and 0.9 steals per game in the 2012-2013 season, the top scorer for the University of Maryland Water Turtles;
At the end of the season, the No. 2 scorer, Ukrainian player Alex Lane, was selected by the Phoenix Suns with the 5th pick, and the mix was not very good, but despite five teams, he won the contract of the Sacramento Kings.
Wells, who decided to finish college for 4 years, led the water turtles to crazy March in the final season of his NCAA, that is, the 2014-2015 season, and personally contributed 14 points, 3 rebounds and 3 assists to eliminate the University of Valparaiso Crusaders, and three years later, he passed the first round again, only to face the West Virginia University Mountaineers who played for his Jiangsu men's basketball teammate Devon Williams in the second round.
The next story theme is disaster: in the 2015 NBA draft, the 23-year-old Dez Wells name was not pronounced from Adam Shaw's mouth - unfortunately lost.
Looking back, there are no special surprises, one is that he played a rare senior in the modern young group to run; the second is that the data is not gorgeous enough, only averaging 15.1 points and 5.3 rebounds per game.
But don't be sad, he and Dacary Johnson, who entered the NBA in the same year's draft, became teammates and entered the NBA Development League together.
The story of the two people who did not abandon each other began.
Fit
In the Thunder's Oklahoma City Blue, Johnson averaged 12.3 points and 8.1 rebounds per game;
Wells, who averaged 12.7 points, 2.2 rebounds and 1.9 assists per game, was always more unfortunate, and then suffered a major injury, but well, wells, who returned from injury in the 2016-2017 season, was full of blood and resurrected, and the state remained the same.
As mentioned earlier, Johnson is the Thunder's intention to delegate the cultivation potential, at this time he has practiced divine skills, is the big killer of DBNL, less than 30 minutes of playing time average contribution per game reached 18.5 points, 7.9 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.3 blocks.
He and Wells worked together to bring oklahoma city blues to no. 1 in the West, and eliminated the Santa Cruz Warriors in the first round of the playoffs, opposite the core of which was Jabari Brown, who had played in Guangzhou, Jilin and Jiangsu in the CBA; and the Finals with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, the two scored in double-figures, but unfortunately, they finally lost the championship.
Although Wells didn't have the kind of unlimited potential that Johnson's coaches could see with their eyes, they were lucky enough to return to the NBA.
Recombine
He was even more capable, but, unfortunately, the 2015-2016 Thunder already had Dion Waites, whose style of play was similar to his — a talent that only cashed in 30 percent, but at the time, most people were bullish on the No. 4 rookie of 2012.
Seeing that the NBA was out of the blue, Wells played several games for Lefikadas in the Greek League before the start of the 2016-2017 season, and joined Serie A in 2017, during which his teammates included former Tianjin foreign aid Hamadi Ndiaye, who also produced Shanghai foreign aid James Nonali, Guangzhou foreign aid Kirf Sykes and Fujian coach Nenad Woosinic in the past few years.
How did Wells, who averaged about 11 points per game in Europe, get the CBA's attention?
This brings us to the East Asian Premier League.
In the 2018-2019 season, Wells returned to Oklahoma City Blue, followed by The Pesaro of Italy (Guangzhou foreign player Dallas Moore had played) and the Fresh Brewers of the Philippine League, just in the summer of 2019, the third place battle of the East Asian Super League Extraordinary 12 Invitational Tournament held in Macau, China, Wells played against the Zhejiang Lions, despite the defeat, but played a surprising number of 33 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists;
And the 2019-2020 Zhejiang Lions foreign aid frequently made mistakes, so they remembered the strong Wells - a query, it turned out that before the debut of the Eastern Super League, he played on behalf of the Fresh Beer Man in the PBA League in 8 games to bomb 37.1 points, 7.9 rebounds, 4.7 assists, 2.0 steals and 1.0 blocks.
Wearing a CBA jersey, he lived up to expectations in just 11 games, averaging 31.1 points, 7.6 rebounds, 5 assists and 3.2 steals per game.
Due to the fact that there are ball holders such as Sun Minghui and Zhao Yanhao in the outside line, Zhejiang instead traded his priority renewal rights to Jiangsu in exchange for Miroslav Radulica; last season, Wells played 30+ in Jiangsu again (3rd in the league), 6 times 40+ in a single season.
This season's Jiangsu is the all-Chinese class, and Wells joined Qingdao.
Such a storyline is hard to imagine: Wells can maintain the super performance of the PBA to the CBA, but it has been abandoned continuously, and finally Qingdao laughed and accepted the gift, and Johnson welcomed his old teammates 4 years later.
December 26, 2021 is the Qingdao debut of the duo, with Johnson starting;
With 6 minutes and 04 seconds left in the first quarter, Wells replaced Zhao Tailong on the court, and Johnson was replaced by Li Yuanyu, at this time, Qingdao was 1 point behind; until the second quarter was 5 minutes and 10 were replaced by the rest, Qingdao led by 17 points; in the end, they also took down the super dark horse Guangzhou in the first stage with a 17-point advantage.
In the first one of the CBA, The substitute Wells played a total of 12 minutes and 54 seconds across the first and second quarters, 6 of 11, 4 of 7 from three-point range, and 4 of 4 free throws, contributing a total of 20 points, 2 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals - leading Qingdao from one point behind to a 17-point lead;
In the end, the game scored 33 points, 3 rebounds and 6 assists.
It can be said that Wells conquered Qingdao in only 12 minutes and 54 seconds: the age of 29 when he played, the terrible thing is that in addition to the impact, he did not shoot many three-point shots in his career, and he still maintained a 40% + shooting rate.
With 2 foreign aides, Qingdao played 7 more games in the 2nd stage, and currently only ranks 14th in the league with 7 wins and 13 losses, which is exactly the same as the ranking in the 1st stage;
However, the second stage is 3 wins and 4 losses, while the first stage of the all-China class is 4 wins and 9 losses, not only the winning rate is completely different, and the 13th Xinjiang is also 7 wins and 13 losses; further up is Jilin's 8 wins and 12 losses, the second stage 3 wins and 4 losses - Qingdao is expected to continue climbing.
From the perspective of physical conditions, Qingdao's Thunder pair may be the strongest foreign aid combination in Stage 2 - so Johnson has averaged 10+ free throws per game for 2 consecutive seasons, and Wells has also scored 6.5 free throws with an average of 83.0% per game for 2 consecutive seasons.
In particular, Dez Wells, obviously not dez Wells, who was discovered by the Zhejiang Lions 2 years ago, but a super foreign aid who has experienced 2 seasons in the CBA, strong body, excellent breakthrough, willing to find teammates, and spares no effort on the defensive end;
And his weaknesses? One is that he does not have CBA playoff experience, and the other is that it is currently impossible to predict whether he can play against the top teams in the league, but I am afraid that it will not prevent him from entering the peak of his CBA career in Qingdao.
It is also so, the last 2 games of head coach Wu Qinglong has adjusted the starting lineup, Wells replaced Johnson, 3 wins and 1 loss after ushering in 3 consecutive defeats may be the price of adjustment, can not prematurely declare this adjustment is a failure.
In Jiangsu Wells to give themselves Chinese name: Dai Xiaolong; some fans call Johnson: Black Li Kui; Dai Xiaolong + Black Li Kui, and look at how high and how far the Qingdao Eagles can fly this season.
Copyright notice: The text is mainly from "The Nest of Wood Seven" and has been greatly modified, the original title is "CBA's strongest foreign aid combination, Wells and Dakari help fly to Qingdao", the original author of Wood Seven; the picture is mainly from the screenshot of the website of the American media. If you have any doubts about copyright, please deal with it immediately, and if other media or self-media need to reprint, please communicate in advance.
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