Tuesday, June 27, 2000

KMT Take Over Mars

Former ruling party KMT(also known as Nationalist Party), which lost the presidential election in March to rival DPP, announced it will take over the Mars. This move, many believe, will make Mars one of the few teams in the world which is owned by a political party.

KMT Management Committee will assign one of its companies to take over the Mars officially. Also, it will pay all players' salary(Mars players haven't received any salary for a year) plus the 9M NT dollars debt which the team owes the league.

KMT is one of the richest political party in the world. In a recently released report by KMT, its asset totaled more than 78 billion NT dollars(2.52 billion US dollars).

With KMT taking over one of its teams, the NEW CBA will be in a much healthier situation. All five teams that will participate in the new season are financially stable. The only problem is whether they can regain the trust between one another and let the league office take care of all business and competition details. In the past, rarely a plan went by without team owners' argument.

Sources say the league office has set up the primary date for the new season. Each team will play 40 regular season games in the 2000 season. The season will tipoff on November 17 and ends its regular season on April 15, 2001. The playoff ends on May 13, 2001.

About 70% of the 100 regular season games will be played in Taipei and Panchiao, both located in the northern part of Taiwan. Other games will be distributed to all other major cities throughout the island.

Sunday, June 18, 2000

TAIWAN NT 3-4 IN ABA

Taiwan NT defeated Hong Kong SINA All-Stars 98-94 on June 17 with the help of import Emmett Hall's 23 points and 11 rebounds. Taiwan NT is now 3-4 in the 20-game ABA(Asian Basketball Association) regular season, tied third with KBL All-Stars from South Korea.

Import Michael Cumberland collected 21 points and 5 rebounds to lead the Hong Kong All-Stars. Hong Kong and Japan All-Stars finished last with 1-6.

China NT edged NBA Ambassadors 83-80 in China and became the only undefeated team in the six-team league. China NT is on top with 7-0 record, the Ambassadors is second with 6-1.

In the third game, KBL All-Stars beat Japan All-Stars 112-97 in Seoul.

CBA RE-OPEN ON NOVEMBER 17

Chinese Basketball Alliance will re-open its season on November 17, CBA President/General Manager CHEN CHENG-CHUN announced yesterday(June 17). Five of the original six teams, except the Dacin Tigers, will compete in the new season.

Hong-fu Rams, Mars, Yulon Dinos, Hong-kuo Elephants and Luckipar Panthers will have to submit 10 million NT dollars to the league. League office says the official season schedule will be released within two weeks.

The most glaring changes in the new season will be the "Balance Draft", which is held after next month's William Jones Cup Internaional Tournament. Each team is allowed to keep only five local players. Players who are not kept by any team will automatically enter the draft pool. League office figures the balance draft will make five teams more balanced in talent, therefore produce more exciting games.

The first college draft will also be held after the Jones Cup and broadcast live. In September the league will setup the Import Players Draft. The pre-season games will be played in October.

Although Dacin Tigers made it clear they will not be back in the CBA within three years, Chen Cheng-chun did not rule out the possibility to invite the Tigers back in the next few months.

The CBA suspended its season in mid-March 1999, midway thru its fifth season, due to numerous financial difficulties.