Under the epidemic, no one can be left alone, including the CBA.
The original CBA All-Star weekend was delayed, and all kinds of gossip went away, and rumors that this All-Star session may be canceled.
If it does cancel, it would be the only season in CBA history that hasn't hosted an All-Star game.
But in history, there is another only one, that is, the only Chinese and foreign All-Star Match.
In the 1994-95 season, the A and A era of the Chinese Basketball League came to an end, and while moving towards professionalism, the first experimental All-Star Game came into being. Therefore, from the 1995-96 season, that is, the first year of the CBA, the holding of the event became a tradition and continues to this day.
The third CBA All-Star Game in 1998 differed from previous editions in that it was no longer divided into two sides by color or north-south division. The Basketball Center is ingenious and plans to team up with Chinese and foreign stars. This organizational decision is not a matter of consideration. This began with the 1997 Asian Championships.
It is said that at that time, the Chinese men's basketball team was strong, dominating the Asian arena for many years, before the Chinese team did not participate in the Asian Championship in 1975, the championship was controlled by Japan and the Philippines for a long time, but as soon as the Chinese team joined, the championship throne immediately changed hands, eleven times to participate, 10 times to win the championship, so that Japan, the Philippines and South Korea had almost no respite, to the 1997 Saudi Riyadh Asian Championship, the Chinese men's basketball team was still full of confidence, the championship was determined to win the hand, but the semi-final carelessly lost Jingzhou, 72-86 lost to South Korea, In the end, he only won the third place and returned home.
This defeat is very stimulating to the Chinese men's basketball team, the basketball center is like a fish in the throat, it is better to form a national team before and after this All-Star, with the main team and a group of CBA foreign aid with excellent body and technology to fight. Training and entertainment are both a balance, killing two birds with one stone.
This All-Star Game was held in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, and the "Ball Newspaper", which was very popular in the north, especially in the Liaoning-Shenyang area, spent 800,000 yuan as the organizer, but due to the short preparation time, it did not sell the naming rights, so the 1998 All-Star Game was crowned with the "Ball Newspaper Cup". Bayi coach Wang Fei is the coach of the Chinese All-Star Team, with a luxurious lineup, gathering 12 local stars including the 94 Golden Generation and the three major centers, namely: China Jordan Hu Weidong of the Jiangsu team; the troika of the Shandong team: Gong Xiaobin, the Chinese postman Ji Minshang, and the snatcher Wang Ju Weisong; the war god of the Bayi team, Liu Yudong, the little Li Flying Knife Li Nan, the wind-chasing teenager Wang Zhizhi and the desperate Sanlang Zhang Jinsong; the little giant Yao Ming of the Shanghai team; and the Bartheon Bartell of the Beijing team Li Xiaoyong, a silent killer of one of the Three Musketeers of the Liaoning Basket (the other two being Wu Naiqun and Wu Qinglong), and the Mongolian machete, the aerial eagle, and the desperate Sanlang Liu Tie (from Inner Mongolia) of the Air Force United Air Force.
At the end of the season, many foreign aides have left China, some players are full, whether to return to China to play is still unknown, then Zhang Weiping Zhang guidance through his own unit International Management Group (IMG) contacted 9 foreign aides and served as the coach of the team. The 9 foreign aides included 8 Americans and 1 Lithuanian.
According to reports, although the team is in a hurry, but the foreign aid team is enthusiastic, they accepted an interview with the "Sports Weekly", the emerging CBA league Zang yi two, although the CBA is in the ascendant, but the salary and team status give them enough attraction and sufficient reason to stay in China, they expressed their willingness to go all out, only by playing a good performance, can they get the favor of the CBA team. The tournament was scheduled to start on April 4, and the organizers stipulated that they report back on April 2, but they stayed at the New World Hotel in Shenyang on April 1 for training.
The Chinese star team is slightly lazy, except for Yao Ming, who trained alone for a week, the rest are basically in a state of rest after the end of the season, some players are late a day before the game, and the training level is not high, such as Liu Tie of the Air Force team shouting "too tired" in training, and since 1997, after the introduction of "All-Star Weekend" in the NBA, some popular stars also need to participate in community public welfare activities and fan festival activities. Li Nan was knocked out of his teeth because of crowding when he was still signing autographs for fans, and Wang Zhizhi, who had just finished playing the Finals and had not fully recovered, had a high fever during the All-Star Game.
The background is clear, and it goes directly to the main topic. At 6:20 p.m. on April 4, 1998, the third Ball Newspaper Cup All-Star Match began on time at the Shenyang Gymnasium. The General All-Star Game is mainly entertainment, but this time the two sides with their own goals do not plan to paddle.
At the beginning of the game, Jiangsu foreign aid Charlemagne took the lead in attacking, frequently attacked the basket, Hu Weidong did not hesitate to let go, showed the killing move, three long-range shots, so that the Chinese star team led 15-11, when James Hodges came on, he was a dunk general, he won the dunk contest championship three times, the popularity was quite high, he played in Liaoning, after-loan to Jiangsu and Hu Weidong as a teammate, James several difficult dunks and air connections detonated the whole field, the two sides scored canine teeth intertwined. Despite the subsequent threat from foreign aid Benny on the inside, the three-pointers of Hu Weidong and Ju Weisong (Shandong team) helped the Chinese stars end the first half with an 45-34 lead of 11 points. One episode is that Wang Zhizhi's state was not booed by the fans, and a month ago, Wang Zhizhi's Bayi team swept Liaoning 3-0 to win the championship. In the second half, the physical gap between the two sides was fully revealed, the outside line of the foreign aid team was extremely active, and the lead of the Chinese team was quickly smoothed out, and the referee at this time played a crucial role in blowing penalties, and the Chinese star team "accidentally" got a lot of free throw opportunities to ensure that they could bite the score.
In the first 38 seconds of the final game, the Chinese team led 78-75 by free throws. Marin of the foreign aid team responded with a long-range shot, 78 draws. The referee immediately "sent" Hu Weidong a free throw opportunity, and Hu Weidong made two free throws, 80 draws. At this time, there are 3 seconds left in the game, and the audience shouts "overtime" and "overtime", but Sichuan's foreign assistant Lei Kelly "does not understand the style", and shot a super far three points in the midfield, killing the game.
The players of the foreign aid team were so happy that they jumped and jumped in a circle to celebrate, even chanting "USA" and "USA", and it is said that foreign aid sang the American national anthem. Originally, our loss was a fire, and this move angered the fans on the spot, who smashed all the mineral water bottles to the foreign aid stars, and the scene was chaotic, and the foreign aid fled back to the locker room in a hurry. Ironically, the Liaoning team's own foreign aid Ma Lin was the most excited, picking up the mineral water bottle and fighting back, but smashing it on the aluminum alloy guardrail of the stand, making a loud noise, and then attracting a wave of more dense mineral water bottles to throw into the room.
It is very rare for all-stars to cause conflicts, and only "small fights" have occurred since then. For example, in the 2003 All-Star Game, The Bayi team's Mork and Beijing's Jamaican foreign assistant Zimene played in the locker room after the game. The 2021 All-Star Dunk Contest, suspected staff members fighting behind basketball hoops. But there has never been a massive clash between fans and players like the class of 1998. In this game, Hu Weidong scored 28 points in the whole game, which should be awarded the All-Star MVP trophy, but inexplicably, the organizers gave him the "best scoring king".
And the most "interesting" thing is that the A-League Awards Gala (that is, the major awards of the CBA regular season, which was still used to using the name A-A) forgot to award the best division organization award to the Beijing Division, and took advantage of the opportunity of the All-Star to reissue it together. The Chinese men's basketball team officially formed a new national men's basketball team a week after the All-Star Game, this national team with the 94 golden generation as the team completed the task well, defeated South Korea in the 1998 Gong Xiaobin blood-stained Bangkok Asian Games to avenge a vengeance; in the 1999 Japan Asian Championships, Jiang Xingquan took the lead, won all six battles, defeated South Korea to win the championship, won the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games tickets, and the asian supremacy stood firm.
And that All-Star Game, still in the grass-roots stage, and all aspects are in urgent need of improvement and improvement, resulting in the result seriously contrary to the good original intention of the organization, and hastily ended in a chicken feather,
Since then, this all-star game in the form of Chinese and foreign star confrontation has never appeared again, and it is likely that it will never appear again.