Friday, February 08, 2002

Chien Wei-juan: 1st Women to Play in China

170cm star guard Chien Wei-juan, who led Kuo-tai Life to an unbelievable 10th straight title in Taiwan Women's A-League last month, will be the first women from Taiwan to play in China. Chien signed with Beijing Shogang for a monthly salary of 10,000 USD.

Kuo-tai Life will let Chien, who at 30 year-old is still one of the best PG/SG in Asian women's basketball, play for Shogang from February 18th to March 20th. However Chien has to come back to Taiwan for Kuo-tai in the women's A-League regular season, which starts play in late-March.

Beijing Shogang is one of 12 teams of the WCBA (Women's Chinese Basketball Association), a newly launched women's professional league in China. WCBA will tipoff on February 18th.

In order to strengthen its appeal to the fans, WCBA installs several interesting rule. Every team has to play man-to-man defense in the first quarter. In the fourth quarter, every successful three-point field goal after the first three will count as four points. Also it uses the color ball, just like the WNBA and the defuncted American league ABA in the seventies.