Denver Nuggets’ forward Kenyon Martin signs with a Chinese basketball team: NBA Update
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is currently in lockout situation over labour unrest with the players’ association and still no progress has been made regarding solving the issue. The NBA owners and the players union
have failed to agree on the new Collective Bargaining (CBA) so far and the lockout is about to complete three months. Apart from many other drawbacks, this lockout is also forcing many players to play overseas. Several players have already signed with different
international basketball clubs and still many are considering playing overseas during the lockout.
The latest to go abroad is Denver Nuggets’ forward Kenyon Martin, who is an unrestricted free agent this offseason. Martin will be playing in the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) for the Xingiang Flying Tigers during the lockout.
Commenting on Twitter about the move, Martin said,
“Yeah its true people on my way to play a season in China. Be back to the NBA when the season is over in China!” He further tweeted, “It’s been a great 7 years in Denver! Thanks to all the True Kenyon Martin fans!!! Love you all!
Time to move on”
According to some reports, Martin’s contract is the biggest contract in Chinese Basketball Association’s (CBA) history. Already several NBA players have signed with different teams of CBA and Martin’s arrival in the Chinese league
will certainly made things competitive. J.R Smith and Wilson Chandler are other two professionals of NBA who are heading to China due to work stoppage in the league.
Martin’s new agent has also confirmed the deal with Xinjiang Flying Tigers. According to his email, “He's looking forward to the opportunity and global expansion of his image/game. He's feeling great.”
Kenyon Martin last played for the Denver Nuggets in 2010-2011 season and was receiving many offers from different Chinese basketball teams. Before his signing with the Flying Tigers, many basketball experts have already speculated
in the media as he would be heading to China this offseason. Finally, those speculations turned out to be true when he actually signed a contract with Chinese basketball league.
No official statement has come regarding his entire contract’s details but this is confirmed as Martin did not include the opt-out clause in his contract.
Martin will be playing a whole season with his new team in China despite the lockout ends in the league. The opt-out clause gives the NBA players freedom to return back as soon as the lockout ends in the league. The Chinese basketball
authorities have already rejected this new rule for NBA’s contractual players when basketball’s world governing body FIBA made it compulsory for every player to opt for this clause if they wanted to play overseas during the lockout.
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