On April 29, Beijing time, the draw ceremony for the 2023 Basketball World Cup ended in Manila, Philippines, and the Chinese men's basketball team was finally placed in Group B with Serbia, Puerto Rico and South Sudan.
At present, the Chinese men's basketball team has not played South Sudan, and is completely suppressed against Serbia and Puerto Rico.
The Chinese men's basketball team and Serbia have only met once in the World Series, and that was at the 2016 Rio Olympics. At that time, the Chinese men's basketball team led by Yi Jianlian defeated Jokic's Serbia team 60-94, and the Serbian team's then head coach Jordjevic is now the head coach of the Chinese men's basketball team. In this game, Yi Jianlian scored a team-high 20 points, becoming one of the few players in the team who played well.
The Chinese men's basketball team has played many games with Puerto Rico, and has met five times in the Olympics and the World Cup. At the Olympic Games, the two sides met once, and the Chinese men's basketball team lost 68-100 at the 1992 Olympic Games.
In the World Cup, the two sides met four times, in 1978, 1986, 2006 and 2010, and the Chinese men's basketball team lost 104-107, won 98-84, lost 87-90 and lost 76-84 respectively.
In the 2006 World Championships (the predecessor of the World Cup), Yao Ming scored 29 points, 8 rebounds and 5 fouls on 12-of-20 shooting, Zhu Fangyu scored 18 points, Yi Jianlian 4 points and 11 rebounds. At that time, after the defeat to Puerto Rico, the qualification situation of the Chinese men's basketball team was once very dangerous, and it had to fight Slovenia in the last battle. Relying on Wang Shipeng's magical three-point shootout in the final moments, the Chinese men's basketball team made a thrilling qualification from the group stage, while Puerto Rico did not qualify in the final moments.