Let's turn the clock back to November 26, 2010, when the Guangzhou International Sports performing arts center was full of 17,000 seats, every fan showed great enthusiasm, and a classic Chinese and Korean basketball battle was about to be staged.
Before the final game, the two teams fought 74:71, and when there were 46 seconds left in the game, Liu Wei's fast attack on the basket was interfered with, but a familiar figure suddenly appeared, taking the rebound under the basket to score the ball, China leading South Korea by 5 points. Who is he? He is the No. 14 Wang Zhizhi. The ball can be said to be worth thousands of gold, and since then, all the points scored by the Chinese team are free throw scores, and there are no sports battle scores.
Although Dazhi has not yet fully recovered from his injury and his athletic ability has declined a lot, he became the fastest player in the whole team to follow up the fast attack at the last moment of the game. At that moment, Dazhi was not an old boy, but a former wind-chasing teenager.
Future Star, parents painstakingly cultivated
In 1977, Wang Zhizhi was born in a basketball family, his father Wang Weijun was the head coach of the Beijing youth team at that time, his mother Ren Huanzhen was a women's basketball player, and his parents' excellent basketball genes were reflected in Wang Zhizhi at a very young age, and his height reached 160 centimeters at the age of 8.
In 1991, the 14-year-old Dazhi was 206 centimeters tall, and his talent quickly attracted the attention of the Beijing men's basketball team and the Bayi men's basketball team. At that time, both teams wanted to include Dazhi under their command, and for a time the two sides were inseparable.
Ren Huanzhen considered that the Beijing men's basketball team already had star players such as Battle and Shan Tao, and was worried that it would be difficult to get a chance to grow, so he wanted to send him to the Bayi men's basketball team. Dazhi's parents have put a lot of effort into this, and now it seems that their decision is quite correct: a few years later, the CBA began the era belonging to the Bayi men's basketball team and Wang Zhizhi.
Dominate the CBA, the backbone of the national team
In 1996, at the age of 19, Wang Zhizhi was selected for the national team coached by Gong Luming and accompanied the team to the Atlanta Olympics. Against the American Dream Team, Wang Zhizhi hated NBA superstar "Admiral" David Robinson, which made the audience marvel. Dazhi's outstanding performance has attracted him the attention of American scouts.
A reporter asked Gong Luming: Legend has it that 8 universities in the United States invited Wang Zhizhi to join? Gong Luming replied: I don't know, I guess all the universities in the United States probably want Wang Zhizhi. Gong Luming's words can be said to give 19-year-old Wang Zhizhi a very high evaluation, and he was not proud of it, and he was very modest in an interview after the game.
In 1999, in order to expand the overseas market, the NBA gradually relaxed the conditions for international players to join: international players over the age of 22 can obtain NBA draft qualifications, and can be unilaterally selected by NBA teams in the draft without registration. In the NBA Draft that same year, 22-year-old Wang Zhizhi was selected by the Dallas Mavericks with the 36th pick. Its owner, Cuban, was so fond of international players that Wang became the first Asian to be selected by an NBA team.
DaZhi is very happy, he really wants to play on the basketball stage at the highest level in the world. But due to various practical reasons, it failed to achieve its wishes.
In 2000, Wang Zhizhi accompanied the national team to the Sydney Olympic Games, and after helping the Bayi team achieve the longest six consecutive championships in history the following year, Wang Zhizhi finally joined the Mavericks as he wished, becoming the first Asian player to land in the NBA.
Overcome all kinds of difficulties and be the first person to eat crabs
When Wang Zhizhi came to the Dallas Mavericks, the season was nearing the end. Although the NBA debut only played 8 minutes to get 6 points and 3 rebounds, but then there was no eye-catching performance, did not adapt to the NBA's game rhythm and intensity, Wang Zhizhi's first NBA season ended hastily.
Wang Zhizhi knows that his rebounding, defensive ability and physical fitness are not small compared with most players in the NBA, and he also knows why the team management is dissatisfied with him. And because of his language and personality, he also had difficulty integrating into the Mavericks, at this time, Dazhi had to think about the future and began to consider staying in the NBA to play in the summer league, to gradually improve his strength in order to adapt to the NBA as soon as possible.
In the summer of 2002, Wang Zhizhi sent an application to the Chinese Basketball Association, hoping to participate in the Summer League and then join the national team to prepare for the World Championships in September. At first, Dazhi thought that with his position in the domestic basketball world and the merits of playing for the national team for many years, this request should not be rejected, but what Wang Zhizhi did not expect was that Xin Lancheng, the director of the basketball management center at the time, rejected him.
Of course, DaZhi was not dead hearted, and after some exchanges, Xin Lancheng finally agreed to let him play in the Summer League, but did not give a written commitment.
He was "expelled" from the national team and experienced the lowest point of his career
Dazhi mistakenly believed that the leaders of the Basketball Association had agreed to his long-term development in the United States, so he firmly believed in the idea of staying in the NBA and playing, bent on getting a foothold in the NBA quickly, and soon began personal training at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Although Wang Zhizhi rarely contacted the Basketball Association during the preparation for the Summer League, due to the "agreement" previously reached, the leaders of the Basketball Association believed that Wang Zhizhi would return to the national team after playing in the Summer League. At this time, however, the state changed and gradually developed in an uncontrollable direction.
A reporter, when interviewing Wang Fei, the head coach of the national team, one day in early June, asked Wang Zhizhi why he did not return to the team for training. Wang Fei said:
"Wang Zhizhi's failure to return to the team on time is his own decision, and neither the Basketball Association nor the national team has approved Wang Zhizhi's long-term development in the United States, and his actions have affected the preparation for the next World Championships and asian games."
On October 3, Wang Zhizhi publicly announced that he signed a three-year, $6 million contract with the Los Angeles Clippers, and Dazhi was very happy in his heart, he felt that he wanted to stay in the NBA to develop without mistake, and signing a new contract was also to prove to the Basketball Association that he had the strength to stay in the United States. But not returning to the team on time did make him lose his national team opportunities.
Return to the national team and complete self-redemption
After signing a 3-year contract with the Clippers, Dazhi did not get the trust of the team, played very little time in the season, and was traded by the team to the Miami Heat in the second season. In October 2005, Daiji was cut by the Miami Heat. The wandering NBA trip made him feel tired, and his previous determination to establish himself in the NBA was gradually worn out.
In this case, after the new director of the Basketball Management Center, Li Yuanwei, took office, things finally ushered in a turnaround again. Li Yuanwei and his party went to the United States to discuss the return of Dazhi to China, and after several exchanges, both sides made concessions, and Dazhi finally agreed to return to China. On April 9, 2006, Wang Zhizhi set off to return to China, and the "farce" that lasted for nearly four years finally came to an end.
In 2006, Dazhi went to the World Championships in Japan with the national team, and when playing against Slovenia, everyone must remember Wang Shipeng's ultra-far three-point kill, but in the last moment of the game, Dazhi's consecutive goals helped the Chinese team to continuously narrow the point gap, and finally created the classic kill.
In the final of the Qatar Asian Games, Dazhi slashed 28 points to help the Chinese team win the Asian Games championship. At that moment, DaZhi completed his self-redemption, and the former wind-chasing teenager returned.
In the new season of the CBA, Dazhi averaged a career-high 26.8 points per game, and once again showed his super personal ability in the finals, leading Bayi Like Guangdong to win the championship with an average of 22.6 points, 10 rebounds and 3 blocks per game.
In 2008, at the much-anticipated Beijing Olympic Games, the Chinese men's basketball team sent the strongest team in history to participate, and Wang Zhizhi was selected for the 12-man roster. In six Games at the Olympics, Dazhi averaged 7.7 points per game and shot 67 percent from two-point range. The old boy burned the last bit of oil in his fuel tank and helped the Chinese men's basketball team achieve the eighth place in the Olympic Games at the doorstep.
In 2016, the 39-year-old Wang Zhizhi officially announced his retirement. At the retirement ceremony, Wang Zhizhi, witnessed by Yao Ming, handed over the torch of Chinese basketball heritage to Yi Jian. The legendary and bumpy career of more than 20 years ended, and the legend of the Chinese men's basketball team came to an end.
Chinese basketball should be thanked to this forerunner, it is he who opened up such a road full of bumps and thorns, and only then did Yao Ming, Battle, Yi Jianlian, Sun Yue, Zhou Qi and others land in the NBA.