Chinese Basketball Association may impose new rules to restrict NBA players influx
At the time, when NBA players are seriously considering their options to play overseas, one of the most targeted venues is planning to apply new rules that will limit the NBA player influx.
For many National Basketball Association superstars including Los Angeles Lakers Legendary Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard and Dwyane Wade, China has been a possible destination to play until the league gets back to business. However, it seems like China doesn’t want the best basketball players in the world to come to their country for a short-term period.
According to the sources, the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) is planning to impose two new rules for the international players to play in their league, which specifically relates to the NBA players.
The first condition will restrict the Chinese teams to include an out-clause option in the contract with the NBA players. While the second condition will give each team the option of signing only one active NBA player.
The CBA is apparently not caught up with the hype of acquiring the NBA players on their own terms and have given a clear indication that the NBA players cannot use their league as a casual outlet, during the lockout.
One of the representatives of the Chinese Basketball Association said, “The CBA isn’t the NBA’s backyard. If we didn’t make a rule about players playing here temporarily, then they’d all just leave in the middle of the season. That would affect our season greatly.”
International governing body of basketball, FIBA has clearly stated that the NBA players will receive the letter of clearance, only if their overseas contracts have the emergency out clause. This will enable the players to come back to NBA when the lockout ends. However, if CBA applies the condition of not including the out-clause in the contracts, it could ultimately rule out the NBA players from playing in China.
One of the big reasons for increasing list of players who declared their interest to play in China is because of its global branding and China being the world’s biggest market. On top of that, the Chinese League has enough wealth to pay the NBA players a substantial sum of money.
Having NBA stars is beneficial for the Chinese league who is concentrating particularly on the long-term development of basketball in the country. However, China seems to have decided that they won’t do this on the cost of disrupting their season.
The general manager of Zhejiang Guangsha Ye Xiangyu said, “I think trying to attract superstar players to the league isn’t a good thing. Once they leave, there won’t be any players left on the market. That would affect a team across all aspects.”
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