With the picturesque Golden Rooster independent and tall inner line deadly backsliding, Zheng Zhun seems to have bought the game skin of Dirk Nowitzki, showing his style in one move and one style, he is the deadliest tall pitcher in the CBA.
In the third stage of the first game against Tianjin, Zheng Zhun scored a key goal in the last moment, at that time, he had a three-point shooting rate of at least 46.3% for three consecutive seasons with a height of 216cm, and as his name suggested, Zheng Zhun zhenzhun. His shooting heatmap last season was a red-and-white patch, with only 6 of 16 of the free throw line zones at the league average, with the rest above the league average.
Such a good shooter, but last offseason almost retired.
Zheng Zhun was born in 1992 and is only thirty years old this year, but he feels that he is old and plans to retreat behind the scenes. Age may not be the only measure, Zheng Zhun has been playing in the CBA since 2008, he has been playing for 14 years, he is also the only veteran of the Guangzhou Dragon and Lions team who has been in the squad since the Shaanxi Dongsheng era, and has been playing for many years, especially after the arrival of the epidemic, the isolation and competition may make the veteran tired and withdraw.
Seventeen years ago, at the 2005 Adidas "Rising Star" training camp held in Shanghai, a Chinese teenager who was less than 14 years old caught the attention of NBA star "Tiangou" Karim Jabbar, that is, the teenager Zheng Zhun. When he was 10 years old, he was sent by his parents to the Shuangyashan City Junior Sports School in Heilongjiang to practice, but the family conditions were not generous for them to afford the related expenses, and at that time, Song Fugui, the head coach of the second team of the Shaanxi Dongsheng men's basketball team, found him.
From Heilongjiang to Xi'an, Zheng Zhun began to embark on a professional basketball path, and only two years later, he emerged from the Adidas training camp and went to the United States for further study, where he met Yao Ming's teammate Tracy McGrady. The young has grown to 214cm, from Abdul-Jabbar to Maddy, the seven NBA stars who have come into contact with him all believe that as long as he trains properly, he will definitely enter the NBA in the future.
In the Adidas International Star Team in the United States, in addition to the teenager Zheng Zhun, there were many Chinese potential young players such as Zhou Peng, Zhang Zhaoxu, Delek Hei, Xu Lei and so on. Zheng Zhun, who is extremely talented, was favored by the Seattle Supersonics, and they even offered to bear the full training cost for 3 years and let him stay in the United States to train, but in the end, Shaanxi Dongsheng still chose a conservative strategy to reject the other party's good intentions, but only sent him abroad for 2-3 months a year to train.
Two years later, Zheng Entering the 2007 U19 National Youth League, Guangdong's Su Wei and Wang Zheng, Shandong's Li Jingyu and Wu Ke, Shanghai's Gu Aoke and Xu Yong, Jiangsu Liu Yahui, Bayi ZhangBo, Liaoning Li Xiaoxu and other young talents were also in the squad, but in the end he failed to enter the World Youth Championship roster.
In the 08-09 season, 16-year-old Zheng Zhun stepped onto the CBA.
Before the start of that season, it was the most lively year in the history of Chinese basketball and the CBA, and Arthur, a writer at the Asian Basketball Network, repeatedly disclosed and questioned the age change of Chinese players in articles, including Dong Hanlin, Li Xiaoxu, Xu Zhonghao, Han Dejun and others, as well as Zheng Zhun. His year of birth on the Official Website of Shaanxi was 1989, but the registration form for international youth competitions was 1992.
The CBA also introduced new rules that year, after which players under the age of 18 can not register, but there are also rules that season, players under the age of 18 but previously registered are not included, and each team can also have a player under the age of 18. A few years later, the strictly enforced new rules added a clause to Guo Allen's "no restriction on the official members of the national team", and Zheng Zhun's birth year was set for 1992 from then on.
Rookie year finale, on March 20, 2009, Zheng Zhun faced Jiangsu with 23 points and 5 rebounds, which was the first time in his career that he had 20+ in a single game, right, at that time, his playing style was not mainly projection, and he did not shoot 1 three-pointer in the whole game. A few days later, the "Robben Combination" that helped Shaanxi play in the playoffs both left, and the team's strength plummeted, which also fulfilled Zheng Zhun's brilliance.
In the 3 big battles with Dongguan Leopards, Zheng Zhun scored 18 points, 8 rebounds and 20 points and 7 rebounds in the first two games, but unfortunately, the third game was only played for 14 minutes due to physical discomfort. The talented Jeong Joon was promoted to starter in his second season and averaged 36.4 minutes per game, averaging 12.7 points, 6 rebounds, 1 assist and 1 block per game, averaging 3.8 three-pointers per game that season, but shooting just 23.2 percent from the field.
That year, Jung Joon was selected for the All-Star Game for the first time in his career.
Among the 2010 All-Star players, Zheng Zhun was the youngest, and interestingly, Guo Shiqiang's coaching happened to be the Assistant Coach of the North District All-Star, which was also the first cooperation between the master and apprentice in the CBA. Zheng Zhun only played 5 minutes in the All-Star Game, but scored 8 points on 4-of-5 shooting, and he also mentioned several times in media interviews that he loved to watch Nowitzki since he was a child and also liked to imitate his shots.
High hopes have been placed on him for many years, but Zheng Zhun's thin figure has not been substantially changed, and he is still one of the thinnest inside lines in this league. In the second year of his career, he once wanted to transform, but tried a large number of three-point shots without satisfactory results, from Xi'an to Foshan, Zheng Zhun also abandoned the plan to use three points as a conventional weapon.
With a height of 216cm, but a weight of less than 100KG all year round, Zheng Zhun's survival on the inside line is not satisfactory. Although he can still play in double figures, scoring 10.2 points and 4.6 rebounds per game in the 13-14 season with 23.6 minutes per game, the inefficient offense and the style of the game seem to have allowed the young genius to touch the ceiling of his career.
The increasingly mediocre physical condition also caused Zheng Zhun to be plagued by injuries, and minor injuries continued early in his career, and in the 14-15 season, he only played 21 games in the suspension season due to injury, the fewest seasons in the rookie year. A fracture of the palm metacarpal bone eventually led to his absence for the entire 15-16 season, which also became an inflection point in his career.
The dream of becoming Yao Ming's successor has long been shattered, and Zheng Zhun finally decided to be himself.
Like Nowitzki, he actually has a very soft shooting feel from the beginning of practicing basketball, but he failed to continue to develop after entering the professional league, and was abandoned for several years. After experiencing a major injury, coupled with the period when the Golden State Warriors led the three-point wave, Zheng Zhun's transformation into a space inner line seems to be a natural success, but how much sweat to pay behind it is probably only known to him.
In the 16-17 season, Zheng Zhun, who returned to the league, averaged 3.6 three-point shots per game, which was his second challenge to the three-point line after the 09-10 season, this time increasing his three-point shooting rate to 40%, becoming the league's number one high-altitude artillery. However, in the next two seasons, his playing time fell all the way, and he only played 11.5 minutes in the 18-19 season, and his three-point shooting status was also greatly affected.
Perhaps a coincidence of fate, in 2019, Nowitzki ended his 21-year career, and Zheng Zhun seemed to buy "Nowitzki's CBA version of the skin" at this time. In the 19-20 season, Zheng Zhun shot 46.3% from three points, and on January 20, 2019, against Shenzhen, he shot 9 of 12 from outside the three-point line, bombed 31 points, 5 rebounds and 5 blocks, leading the team to win.
At that time, many people were asking whether Zheng Zhun would participate in the All-Star Three-Point Contest, and the low-key Zheng Standard made it clear that he would not consider it. However, the 2020 All-Star just settled in Guangzhou, zheng zhun as the host can not refuse the three-point competition, but Zheng Zhun, who focuses on participation, was eliminated in the preliminary round, and he has always been calm and introverted, but he is still not so adapted to the entertainment scene.
Back in the league, Zheng Zhun began to be jokingly called "human cannon".
Super high shot, extreme arc, Zheng Zhun has been considered a key card hidden in the last moments of the Guangzhou men's basketball team in many seasons, and he has also hit the quasi-kill and key three-pointer several times. It seems that as long as the final ball is in his hands and watching the ball fly out of his hand, the opponent can do nothing but pray that he can't shoot.
Last season, Guo Shiqiang coached to join Guangzhou, and Zheng Zhun became a bench bandit in Guangzhou, averaging 20.1 minutes per game, scoring 9.1 points, 4.2 rebounds and 0.7 assists. For the first time in his career, he achieved the "180 Club" achievement, shooting 52.7% from the field, 47.1% from three-point range, 92.5% from the free throw line, and ranked second in the three-point shooting rate list with a gap of 0.1%, while Liu Lipeng at the top of the list played 17 games less than him.
Played such a good season, but Zheng Zhun almost retired in the summer. The Guangzhou management and the coaching staff under the guidance of Guo Shiqiang tried their best to retain, and the team gave the renewal conditions of the maximum salary contract, and finally left him to play for one more year. So there is the scene at the beginning of the article, Where Zheng Zhun uses a very Novsky-style golden rooster to stand alone and single-handedly lean back for Guangzhou to overtake the score in the last moment.
When Guangzhou beat Tianjin, Zheng Zhun performed even better than the previous season, averaging 9.9 points, 3.1 rebounds and 1.1 assists in 18.3 minutes, and his three-point shooting rate was a career-high 48.3%, ranking third in the league. But after the arrival of TJ Lief, Zheng Zhun was still unavoidably affected, and since then he has only scored 2 goals in 14 three-point shots.
Perhaps at this time, people can feel the retreat of some veterans, playing all year round, constantly adapting to changes in the style of the ball, and running in with new teammates, especially the tournament system and family gathering less and more, it is inevitable to feel tired.
However, this year's Guangzhou is firmly holding the top eight, and the future can be expected, this not-so-experienced team still needs veterans to press the team. Zheng Zhun has only played 6 playoff games in his career, and now is a good time. The All-Star Weekend has settled in Foshan again, and perhaps Zheng Zhun should have another three-point contest to let people see the style.
Time is merciless, he is no longer a talented teenager, and may never be able to catch up with people's expectations, but the veteran who has played in the CBA for 14 years has worked hard and worked hard. It is the wind and frost of the years that have polished the wonderful shooting hand shape, and it is the baptism of time that has written an imperfect legend.
This season is coming to an end, and if you can, I hope That Jung Joon can fight for a few more years, and may this Nowitzki skin never expire.