According to previous reports, the Chinese women’s basketball team was eliminated from the group stage and ended their journey at the Olympic Games.
A domestic sports media professional, @Yang Yi, commented on the Chinese women’s basketball team.
The content of the report is as follows:
Upon waking up, I saw that the Chinese women’s basketball team had quietly been knocked out. If they had committed just one less mistake in the final 30 seconds against Spain, or if they had been more alert and won a few more points against Puerto Rico when they were ahead, the reality of sports is that there are no ‘ifs’.
Frankly speaking, this Chinese women’s basketball team lacks medal competitiveness for the Paris Olympics, which was within the knowledge of insiders before the games started, but it was unexpected that they wouldn’t even advance from the group stage. In many of my pre-game programs, I mentioned that outside of the United States, the peak period of a national women’s basketball team lasts around four years. Our current team is clearly past its peak period, with an aging and injury-prone backcourt. You could call this a commendable effort, as the girls have fought hard and been injured for the team, and it can be understood to take them to the Olympic Games as a reward. However, the reality is that there is no one to follow. Women’s basketball is like this: when one generation passes, the next takes over.
But when looking back and reflecting on this, from the perspective of management, are there issues that could have been handled better? Over the past few years, the focus has been on building ‘the world’s largest women’s basketball league’, with the Women’s Chinese Basketball Association (WCBA) having 19 teams (WNBA has 12). The WCBA claims to be the top league, yet there is no secondary league below it. This results in numerous low-level matches within the league, which are played regardless and have no significance for national team athletes. In the past two years, athletes’ competitive states during national team gatherings were significantly poor, and this was closely related to the league’s configuration and consumption.
Many media outlets reported that Li Yu’er gave up a salary of several million yuan in China to play in the WNBA, earning only about $60,000 per season. However, a person who understands women’s basketball knows that the time between the WNBA and WCBA does not conflict; the WNBA plays in the summer, and many WNBA players come to China to play as foreign players in the WCBA. This means that the issue isn’t about sacrificing income; what is the problem then? Why aren’t other Chinese players going abroad, trying to improve themselves through experience in the WNBA?
With the midway point of the Olympic schedule, all three Chinese basketball teams—the women’s team, men’s and women’s three-person basketball—have completed their games and can head home. The current Olympic cycle has come to an end, and the last veil has been lifted. Let’s wait for the summary.