-- The CTBA said it will announce the preliminary roster of Taiwan NT for the 2008 William Jones Cup tournament in mid-May. However, chances are a number of big name players are considering to sit out the annual festivity.
Tien Lei, Chen Hsin-an, Lin Chih-chieh, Tseng Wen-ting, Ho Shou-cheng and Lee Hsueh-lin are all possible to miss the tournament due to injuries. Think about it. Those are about half of the national team.
Anyway, in the Olympic year the Jones Cup will be the only basketball game in town for Taiwanese fans as there have been no international games to be played this year.
Taiwan NT will be once again led by Korean head coach Chung Kwon Suk, who guided Taiwan NT to the sixth place in the Asian Championship last year. The Jones Cup training camp is scheduled to start June 1 in Beitou, Taipei.
According to local media reports, invited guests included the national teams of Qatar, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Egypt and club teams from the Philippines, Japan, South Korea and Australia.
-- Word is that Jon Sanders, the only import in the SBL, will be playing for his third team in three years next season. And I was told that new team for Sanders will be Dacin Tigers.
Due to a special SBL rule, the top four teams are not allowed to hire import players. Which is why Sanders, who helped Videoland and Dmedia to the playoffs in the past two seasons, will not be able to play for Dmedia and need to either find a new SBL team or play elsewhere.
The rule, like I have said many times here, is ridiculous. The import players have to play well to keep their jobs, obviously. But when they do play well and take their teams to the playoffs, they will lose their jobs.