The stormy end of the Chinese championship season left deep scars since Yao Ming has just been removed from his position as president of the professional league. A true local legend, the former Rockets pivot had been in place since 2017, and he had greatly contributed to the rise of basketball in China.
In his press release, the CBA gave no indication of the reason for Ming’s departure, except that the board of directors felt that it was time for a new direction. To replace him, the league picked sports journalist Xu Jicheng, who served on bid committees and oversaw the running of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and last year’s Winter Games.
If Ming was pushed out, it was because of the scandal that hit the start of the playoffs with suspicions of corruption and match-fixing in the series between the Jiangsu Dragons and the Shanghai Sharks. The authorities of the Chinese basketball league had decided to exclude the two teams from the playoffs after two “fixed” matches, and to banish their leaders for several years, as well as to erase their results for the season.
The federation had estimated that the Sharks had voluntarily lost Game 2 so that Eric Bledsoe, suspended four matches, only missed the first match of the series of quarters against the Leopards of Shenzhen. The Sharks which are none other than Yao Ming’s former club…
