Foshan became the host city of CBA 2022 All-Star Weekend, which is the fourth city in Guangdong to have this honor, and the 7th time that All-Stars have settled in Guangdong, dragons and lions are dressed up for fire dance, and zhang lanterns are waiting for spring.
The history of the CBA All-Star Game can be traced back to 1995, and the All-Star Game was held before the beginning of the 95-96 season. Before the official season of the league began, a round of eight was played that year, and as a qualifying match for the first year of A and A, the top 6 were able to directly enter the newly established professional league.
Because of this, in the 1995 Shanghai All-Star Game, the Chinese men's basketball team called the wind and rain at that year's Asian Championship, and the three stars of Gong Xiaobin, Hu Weidong and Zheng Wu appeared as special invited players. Because at that time, the Shandong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang they played for were only qualified for the CBA League in the subsequent Serie A and B promotion and relegation matches.
Since 1995, Shanghai has held four All-Star Games.
Magic is the real basketball city in the early days of the CBA, Shanghai hosted the All-Star Games in 1995, 97, 1999 and 06, which has been rarely mentioned, in fact, when the Bayi men's basketball team won the championship in the first year of the CBA, its home stadium was also at the Yangpu Stadium in Shanghai. Although nearly 16 years have passed since the last All-Star Game was held in Shanghai, Shanghai is still tied for Second place with Guangzhou in the ranking of all-star cities in league history.
The first place is the CBA's first year all-star host city Beijing, the 1996 Beijing University Student Gymnasium, the 2002 Shougang Gymnasium, the 10,11, 14, 17 years of Wukesong Stadium, and the 2015 National Stadium, which have enjoyed a total of seven All-Star Weekend carnivals.
Wukesong Stadium began to become a landmark building of Chinese basketball at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, frequently appeared in the Feast Center, is the CBA to host the most All-Star stadium, which also directly pushed the CBA into the era of Wanda Hall, to this day, the league has a number of teams home to this scale.
After hosting the Winter Olympics in Beijing, wukesong gymnasium was transformed to complete the transformation of the professional basketball court to the professional ice hockey rink in 6 hours. Similarly, several other stadiums have also undergone special renovations specifically for the Winter Olympics, and the Shougang Industrial Park has even been directly transformed into a base camp for ice and snow sports, and Gu Ailing's stunning jump is just a few kilometers away from the Shougang Basketball Center.
The most interesting thing is that in the era when the CBA All-Star Game entered the north-south division confrontation, Beijing was the blessed land of the north all-stars, especially in the 4 showdowns of Wukesong, and the north district won all of them. In 2011, Xinjiang foreign aid Quincy Dolby broke the All-Star Game record of 42 points set by Hu Weidong with 44 points, the North District won by 1 point, Ding Yanyu in 2017 bombed 31 points, and the North District won by 2 points.
It is worth mentioning that since 2017, the North District has lost for 4 consecutive years.
Without Beijing's blessing, the North District All-Stars have been fighting for a long time, and the last time north side won and was not in Beijing, it was in Guangdong. As the first giant in the history of the CBA, Dongguan, the city where the Guangdong men's basketball team is home, has only held one All-Star in history, which is the big battle at the Dongguan Basketball Center Gymnasium in the 15-16 season.
Michael Beasley, who played for Shandong at the time, slashed 63 points, 19 rebounds and 13 assists, helping the North Side to avenge while setting an All-Star single-game scoring record, and becoming the second player in history to win the All-Star MVP since Wang Zhizhi. The North Division won 172-145, 27 points also set an All-Star Game point difference record, and more interestingly, Beasley later won the CBA championship with Guangdong.
Although Dongguan rarely hosts the All-Star Games, Guangdong is the province with the most All-Stars. Yangcheng Guangzhou has been out of the siege four times, and together with Beijing, it has become the only two cities to host the CBA All-Star Game consecutively, and the Guangzhou Gymnasium has staged an All-Star feast again in 2003 and 2020, spanning 17 years.
Guangzhou has not had a CBA team for a long time, and only as a Guangdong Hongyuan branch venue, or hosting some other events, can you see high-level basketball games and stars. In 2012 and 2013, Guangzhou International Sports Performing Arts Center hosted all-stars consecutively, and it was the popularity of these two years that accelerated the process of Yangcheng owning a CBA team, and only 3 years later, Foshan Dragon and Lions relocated to Guangzhou.
In Shenzhen, another city in Guangdong, a similar story is happening. Dongguan Leopard relocated to Pengcheng in 2015 and subsequently set its home stadium at the Shenzhen Universiade Center, which can accommodate nearly 18,000 people, and less than three years later, Shenzhen hosted the 2018 All-Star Game. Yi Jianlian, who moved to Shenzhen with his parents at the age of 2, got the second All-Star MVP of his career here, and yes, the first one was in Guangzhou.
Foshan was once the third city in Guangdong to have a CBA team, but the All-Star Game came after the team left.
In 2010, the Shaanxi men's basketball team was relocated to Foshan by Nengxing Group, where the Dragon lion men's basketball team stayed for 6 years, and in these 6 years, Guangzhou and Dongguan hosted the All-Star Game three times, but Foshan never had the opportunity. Today, Foshan no longer has a CBA team, but finally has the opportunity to host the All-Star Game.
Although this is a bit of a pity for foshan local fans, it is enough to be relieved that the Foshan International Sports Culture and Performing Arts Center, the venue of the 2022 All-Star Game, is full of CBA elements. This large stadium with a capacity of 15,000 people was wholly owned by Nengxing Group, the parent company of the Dragon lion men's basketball team, and was completed in 2018, and also hosted the men's basketball World Cup in 2019, with a huge "dragon and lion" on the top of the venue.
Although it is another city, it is actually only about 1 hour and 20 minutes by subway from the Tianhe Stadium in downtown Guangzhou. If you start from Guangzhou South Railway Station (high-speed rail station), you only need to go through 13 subway stations, which takes less than 40 minutes. The Guangzhou men's basketball team currently has no move to relocate its home stadium, but perhaps when the home-and-away system is truly restored, the venue will usher in more games.
Guangdong tied Beijing with 7 All-Stars in 4 cities and ranked first together, followed by Shanghai, which was held four times. At present, the provinces that have held it twice are Shandong (Qingdao), Sichuan (Chengdu) and Zhejiang (Yiwu and Beilun), Liaoning (Shenyang) has hosted it once, but it has been 24 years, and the main venue of the previous stage, Jilin (Changchun), has also welcomed all-star generals in 21 years.
The All-Star Game doesn't always start in CBA teams' home cities and tends to open up some new stories.
In 2008, Chengdu, Sichuan province, hosted the CBA All-Star Game, when the Sichuan Panda men's basketball team had long been sealed in the history of the league, and tianfu was eager to have a CBA team again. Just a year after the All-Star Game, Sichuan Jinqiang became the creator of the dream, and they spent 3 years rushing from the NBL to the CBA, and then completed the historic first crown in 2016.
By the way, the crown of the 2008 All-Star Skills Competition was taken away by Jiangsu teenager Han Shuo, who beat Shanghai Liu Wei and Shandong Sun Jie with a time of 22.93 seconds. Unexpectedly, more than ten years later, the former young player Han Shuo put on the Sichuan jersey and became one of the two elders of the current team.
Of all the cities where the CBA has hosted All-Stars so far, only one city has never had a CBA team, and that is Changsha. On January 18, 2004, at the Helong Stadium in Changsha, the CBA All-Star Game was spread out like a dazzling firework in Star City.
At that time, Changsha did not have a CBA team, but not long before that, the Bayi women's basketball team had just moved into Changsha, and the Helong Stadium was its home stadium.
Changsha has always been the blessed land of China's three major balls, the national team can always have the momentum of the devil's home here, the 2015 men's basketball Asian Championship reversed South Korea, the fans sang the motherland in unison, and the Chinese men's football team was unbeaten in 9 international A-level matches at Helong Stadium.
It is a pity that after the Bayi women's basketball team and Changsha Jinde, although there have been teams such as Changsha Parkin and Changsha Jinjian Rice Industry, Changsha has not been able to have the top league team. By the way, 2004 is also the first time in Yi Jianlian's career to be selected for the All-Star Game roster, nearly 18 years have passed, the UAE League is also the only player still active in that year, the All-Star vote has begun, he should most likely appear on the All-Star game.
It's another year of all-stars, what kind of new story will Foshan start?