Jon Sanders, a 6-6 swingman who played for Videoland Hunters last season, was back in the SBL. This time Sanders will play for a young team named dmedia, which was previously known as ETSN Antelopes before being sold to Segway Technology -- dmedia's mother company.
Sanders averaged for 22.8 points(#2 in the league), 16.1 rebounds(#1) and 1.28(#5) blocks per game with the Hunters and was the primary reason why Videoland improved from 13-17 in the 2005-06 season to 21-9 in 2006-07.
Unfortunately Sanders was edged by Taiwan Beer's Lin Chih-jay, who also won the postseason MVP later, in the regular season MVP voting by a few votes. Personally I would've voted for Sanders, but Taiwanese reporters has had a well-known tendency to vote for locals since the old CBA(Taiwan's defunct pro league) days. So that did not surprise me.
Videoland and Sanders didn't enjoy a successful postseason, losing to eventual champion Taiwan Beer 3-1, although it did beat Yulon 3-1 in the meaningless third-place series.
Sanders will be the only import player in the SBL this season, so it seemed. If you ask me, I think the league and the teams need import players to increase their exposure and strengthen the competition level. The only problem is that nowadays there's still no one willing to make that investment although the SBL did receive some relatively commercial success.
Anyway, Sanders is now back to Taiwan with the new team dmedia, which has a group of young players and a veteran coach Wu Jian-kuo. It will be interesting to observe the progress of this young team.
Check out Jon Sander's web site at MySpace and the group "Pro Ball in Taiwan with Jon Sanders" he started in the Facebook, where he will post a weekly video to update his life in Taiwan during the new season.
Pro Ball in Taiwan with Jon Sander
Jon Sanders MySpace