Approaching the start of the third phase of the CBA regular season, Li Gen, who has not played this season, has returned to the public eye in a slightly unexpected way. It is reported that the 33-year-old Li Gen is currently undergoing a trial in the NBL league Shaanxi Xinda to try to return from the NBL league. For Li Gen, this is a move he has taken to stick to his career, but it is more like an attempt in desperation.
This season, Li Gen has never been able to play for North Control again, and the main reason for his long absence is injury. In August last year, Li Gen announced on social media that his surgery had gone smooth, and according to his own account, he was injured in an accident during training. After this operation, Li Gen never stepped on the CBA field again, and his fate with the North Control team gradually came to an end.
In late January, the Beijing Control team officially announced that "due to the consideration of the team's construction plan and the schedule of this season, after friendly consultation and agreement with Li Genren, Beijing Control terminated the employment contract with Li Gen with immediate effect." In the end, Li Gen played for North Control in 52 games, and the two sides parted ways after only a year and a half of cooperation. After breaking up with North Control, Li Gen's name appeared on the "CBA League Free Agent List". But until the trading window of the season (February 15-18) has passed, Li Gen has not been able to join other teams, which also makes Li Gen completely out of the CBA this season, which has led to his current "retreat" in the NBL League trial.
Leaving Beijing Control and leaving the CBA, Li Gen's future is foggy. But similar upheavals and displacements, Li Gen should no longer be unfamiliar, especially after the experience of the past three years.
At the end of June 2019, Li Gen left the Xinjiang team he had played for four years and returned to the Shanghai team. That summer, it was almost the most important deal in the CBA's homegrown transfer market, and Li Gen was still in the ranks of the top local forwards. Shanghai, which harvested Li Gen, was overjoyed, and in addition to issuing a generous contract for Li Gen, they also welcomed Li Gen "home" with "returning from the waves". Li Gen, who left Xinjiang and played in Shanghai for the first two years of his career, was also widely regarded as "returning to the roots" after returning to Shanghai.
However, after only one season of cooperation with Shanghai, Li Gen was traded by Shanghai to Beijing, of course, because of course, Li Gen's performance was far from Shanghai's expectations. Throughout the season (2019-20), Li Gen averaged only 8.9 points per game, a new low since the 2009-10 season. Due to injury, Li Gen only played 20 games in the whole season. With the Shanghai team missing the playoffs early, Li Gen was also sent away by the Shanghai team in this season of chicken feathers. It is worth mentioning that when the transaction was completed, the Shanghai men's basketball team did not even mention this matter in the official social media, but the North Control Team unilaterally announced the joining of Li Gen.
Returning to Beijing, Li Gen, who joined Beijing Control, joined forces with Marbury again, but his identity changed from a former teammate to his current mentor and apprentice. Li Gen is looking forward to a strong rebound, he has worked very hard in training, and at one point he has re-shown his aggression on the offensive end. Marbury is very optimistic about him, bluntly saying that "attack is his best defense". At the same time, Marbury also proposed the task of letting Li Gen take on more playing time early, hoping that the former national player could enrich the firepower of the North Control team in the second team and make up for the lack of the North Control team in the front line.
Compared with the Shanghai team, Li Gen, who switched to the Beijing Control team, did perform better. Not only did he play almost full attendance in 52 games, but he averaged 9.6 points per game. But the increase in injuries and the decline in physical function have caused Li Gen to no longer show the same power as before. In the end, the North Control team also broke the cold and missed the playoffs, and Li Gen had no choice but to miss the playoffs for the second consecutive season. This season, with Li Gen injured again, he is no longer young and has no place in the North Control team. In the end, the two parties reached a buyout agreement, and each side went their separate ways.
Now, where Li Gen's future is is a mystery.
Throughout Li Gen's 14-year career, it can be described as ups and downs. In the 2008-09 season, he was a fledgling, averaging 9.3 points per game when he first entered the CBA. But in the second season, the Shanghai team replaced Li Qiuping with Deng Huade, and Li Gen fell out of favor and had to leave the Shanghai team in the summer of 2010. After joining Qingdao, he achieved an explosion and won the CBA All-Star Game MVP in the 2011-12 season, which made a fortune. In the summer of 2012, he joined the Beijing team and became the team's super sixth man, helping the Beijing team to complete the championship. In the summer of 2015, he played for the national team for the first time, and it was also in that summer that he switched to xinjiang after soaring in value. It was also from this summer that Li Gen played for the national team or entered the national team training list for four consecutive years, until he was plagued by injuries in the 2018-19 season, and his performance declined, and he was no longer in the field of vision of the national team coaching staff. After that, it is his story in recent years.
At his peak, Li Gen was one of the CBA's top forwards and a very representative player outside the system in CBA history. Every of his moves over the past decade has sparked heated debate. Now that Li Gen is 33 years old, he is still trying to continue his career, and trying out for the NBL may be an opportunity. In the future, whether Li Gen can return to the CBA depends on whether he can stay healthy and what kind of state he shows.