Sunday, June 05, 2011

Yang could join Tseng in Shanghai next season: report

台啤楊敬敏

SBL Finals MVP Yang Ching-min of Taiwan Beer could join former Yulon center Tseng Wen-ting to play for Shanghai Sharks of the Chinese League CBA (Chinese Basketball Association) next season, local media reported.

The 190cm shooter is expected to be tested in Shanghai in July and meet with Shanghai owner Yao Ming and its head coach Bob Donewald, United Evening Daily reported, adding that two other teams expressed interests in Yang.

Tseng, a 204cm center who played for Osaka Evessa of the Japanese league BJ League this past season, is expected to sign with the Sharks soon. Due to league regulation, Tseng was not able to join Shanghai last season.

Yang will be yet another Taiwanese star player to play for a much lucrative contract, following the footsteps of Chen Hsin-an, Lin Chih-chieh, Lee Hsueh-lin and Yen Hsin-shu, among others.

According to the United Evening News, CBA teams are willing to pay more than NT$4 million (approximately US$140,000) annually -- and more than NT$8 million (approximately US$270,000) for Lin Chih-chieh and Tseng Wen-ting -- for the service of top-notch Taiwanese players.

In Taiwan, SBL implements a much-criticized hard cap of NT$120,000 (US$4,190) on players' monthly salary, which means a top player is only able to earn a little more than US$50,000 annually.

While top players usually earn more than that with some getting paid more than NT$3 million (around US$105,000) because most SBL teams did not follow the stupid regulation, the budgets of SBL teams pale in comparison of the Chinese teams.

Some local basketball observers have urged the league to scrap the salary cap and called for the SBL teams to invest more on the players, otherwise, they said, losing big-name players will be inevitable.