The Star Challenge is about to begin.
This season's CBA All-Star Weekend officially kicked off on the 25th, with two games, including Xingrui first-year VS Peking University and emerging sophomore vs. college student united. The positive interaction between the CBA league and the CUBAL league (national college basketball league) is certainly very positive, but many players who enter the CBA league through the draft, especially college players, face a very embarrassing problem: age!
Lin Wei (2003), Cui Yongxi (2003), Cheng Wangfan (2003)...... Among the players selected for the first-year squad, there are indeed many young players who have proven themselves in the CBA league, but there are also several "old rookies" who are really not young.
Among the 12 players selected for the first year of Xingrui, Jiang Shuai, who was selected by the Ningbo men's basketball team in the 4th place in the 2022 CBA draft, is undoubtedly a representative of the "old rookie". Jiang Shuai, who previously played for Hunan Normal University in the CUBAL League, is now 26 years old, seven years older than Weng Jinlang (2004), the youngest in Xingrui's first-year team.
Jiang Shuai is the oldest player in Xingrui's first-year team.
In addition to Jiang Shuai, another "post-90s" in Xingrui's first-year team is Cao Song (Qingdao men's basketball) born in 1999, and like Jiang Shuai, Cao Song (Zhejiang University) also entered the CBA league through the 2022 CBA Draft - the 7th place was selected by the Qingdao men's basketball team.
Jiang Shuai, 26, and Cao Song, 24, became two senior players in the Star Challenge, and it is worth noting that the other 10 teammates on the same team as them are all non-draft players. In fact, there could have been two other "old rookies" in the first-year team of Xingrui, the 2022 CBA draft champion Wang Lanzheng (Nanjing Tongxi), and the No. 6 pick Hong Xin who was selected by the Sichuan men's basketball team, but during the All-Star weekend, 25-year-old Wang Lanrang and 24-year-old Hong Xin will represent the college team against Xingrui's second year that night.
Jiang Shuai is averaging 9.1 points per game this season.
Before the start of this season's CBA league, the CBA's official "Basic Information White Paper on Domestic Players" showed that the average age of domestic players who completed registration this season was 24.3 years old, in other words, when Wang Lanrong, Jiang Shuai, Cao Song and even Hong Xin just ushered in their rookie season, their age had made them veterans of the CBA league.
Players who enter the CBA league through the draft are at a great disadvantage in age, perhaps most clearly reflected in the Nanjing Tongxi team, which is the best at "welcome" through the draft.
Among the five newcomers in Nanjing Tongxi, only Lin Wei is a "post-00 generation".
In the 2021 CBA draft, Nanjing Tongxi selected three college players including Zhao Baiqing (Peking University), Liu Dong (Tsinghua University) and Wu Tingjia (China University of Mining and Technology). But among the three players who can still represent Xingrui's second year, Liu Dong was born in 1995 and is now 28 years old, Wu Tingjia was born in 1997 and is now 26 years old, and Zhao Baiqing was born in 1998 and is now 25 years old. The reason why Liu Dong became the only player among the above players in Nanjing Tongxi who was absent from this Star Sharp Tournament was because he was embarrassed to play with children?
Compared with Lin Wei (December 25, 2003), a teammate who is also a first-year star rui, these "old rookies" of Nanjing Tongxi have suffered a big loss at least in terms of age, regardless of whether there is room for improvement at the technical and tactical level, at least they are likely to be much lower than Lin Wei in terms of the number of years they have played in the CBA league.
Teams still make up the majority of their own players.
Or go back to the official "white paper" released by the CBA, which shows that 43 players entered the CBA league through self-cultivation this season, and 20 players entered the CBA league through the draft. Leaving aside the gap in numbers, the age gap between Lin Wei (self-cultivated) and Wang Lanzheng (draft) is actually enough to reflect the shortcomings of today's CBA draft, saying that the "old rookie" slapped the face CBA draft may be a bit extreme, but if the draft conference always provides the CBA league with a 26-year-old "star rui first year", it is really not a gratifying thing.