Chinese Basketball Association


The Chinese Basketball Association, often abbreviated as the CBA, is the first-tier men's professional basketball league in China.
The league is commonly known by fans as the CBA, and this acronym is even used in Chinese on a regular basis. The CBA should not be confused with the National Basketball League, which is a professional minor league. There is also a Women's Chinese Basketball Association.
A few Chinese players who competed in the CBA in the early stages of their careers—including Wang Zhizhi, Mengke Bateer, Yao Ming, Yi Jianlian, Sun Yue, and Zhou Qi—have also played in the National Basketball Association. Others, such as Xue Yuyang and Wang Zhelin, were chosen in the draft, but did not play in the NBA.
Only a limited number of foreign players are allowed on each CBA team. Notable imports include former NBA All-Stars Stephon Marbury, Tracy McGrady, Gilbert Arenas, Steve Francis, Metta World Peace and Kenyon Martin—as well as several NBA veterans who would become CBA All-Stars—Michael Beasley, Aaron Brooks, Jimmer Fredette, Al Harrington, Lester Hudson, Randolph Morris, Shavlik Randolph, Jeremy Lin and J.R. Smith.

Background

The CBA began play in the 1995-96 season. The league should not be confused with the Chinese Basketball Association, which was founded in June 1956 and represents the country in matters involving the sport's governing body, FIBA. Basketball in China is currently regulated by the Chinese Basketball Management Center.
Other Chinese basketball leagues include the National Basketball League, the Chinese University Basketball Association, and the Chinese High School Basketball League. At one time there was a league called the Chinese New Basketball Alliance, one of whose most prominent teams was the Beijing Sea Lions, but this venture lasted for just one winter.
The first non-Chinese player to compete in the CBA was Mihail Savinkov of Uzbekistan, who joined the Zhejiang Squirrels in the league's inaugural 1995-96 campaign. During the 1996-97 season, James Hodges became one of the first Americans to play in the CBA, and his signing by the Liaoning Hunters helped pave the way for many more imports from the United States to follow in the ensuing years.
Some other notable foreign pioneers included John Spencer, who joined the Jiangsu Dragons later in the 1996-97 campaign, and David Vanterpool, who inked a deal with the Jilin Northeast Tigers the following winter, who helped the team move up to the CBA in time for the 1998-99 season. The CBA's first international coach was American Robert Hoggard, who led the Sichuan Pandas for the last eight games of the 1997-98 campaign.

Team names

For a full list of teams, see [|Current clubs] section below. Also see :Category:Chinese Basketball Association teams.
The full name of each team usually consists of three parts, in the following order:
  1. A geographic designation. All others are province-level designations.
  2. A corporate sponsor name. This sponsor may change from year to year, and sometimes even in mid-season.
  3. A nickname, such as the name of an animal.
The presence of corporate sponsor names can occasionally lead to confusion about what name to use in English because many variants may be seen. Team names are usually abbreviated, so that either the corporate sponsor name or the nickname is used interchangeably. In addition, team nicknames can sometimes be translated into English in more than one way, and corporate sponsors tend to change frequently over time.
Nickname changes are rare, but occasionally happen, such as when the Shandong team switched from Flaming Bulls to Lions to Gold Lions to Golden Stars. Other examples include the Liaoning team dumping Hunters for Dinosaurs and then Flying Leopards -- as well as the Foshan team's evolving attempts to "Anglicize" its nickname—by going from Kylins to Dralions to Long-Lions.
In previous years, the title of the league itself was available for corporate naming sponsorship. In 1999–2000 and 2000–2001 it was known as the Hilton League, in 2001–2002 and 2002–2003 it was the Motorola League, and in 2003–2004 it was sponsored by China Unicom. These corporate league titles were not always used in the news media, however, and this sponsorship practice was discontinued at the start of the 2004–2005 season.

Current clubs

While clubs are listed by division here, the CBA does not use these designations for regular season purposes anymore, as each squad now plays each other once at home and once on the road. Divisions are used for the league's annual All-Star Game, however, and are shown here for the sake of convenience.

Timeline

This is a chronological listing of current and former CBA teams according to the season that they entered the league.

DateFormat = yyyy
ImageSize = width:1000 height:auto barincrement:20
Period = from:1995 till:2021
TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal format:yyyy
PlotArea = right:20 left:0 bottom:50 top:5
Colors = id:barcolor value:rgb
id:line value:black
id:bg value:white
id:Full value:rgb # Full time club
id:Defunct value:rgb # Defunct club
id:Defunct2 value:rgb
PlotData =
shift:
width:15 textcolor:black shift: anchor:from fontsize:M
bar:Police color:Defunct from:1995 till:1996 text:Vanguard / Police
bar:NJArmy color:Defunct from:1995 till:1996 text:Nanjing Army
bar:NJArmy shift: color:Defunct from:1999 till:2000 text:Nanjing Army
bar:Shenyang color:Defunct from:1995 till:1998 text:Shenyang Army
bar:Shenyang color:Defunct from:2000 till:2001 text:Shenyang Army
bar:Jinan color:Defunct from:1995 till:1999 text:Jinan Army
bar:Jinan color:Defunct from:2000 till:2001 text:Jinan Army
bar:AF color:Defunct from:1995 till:1998 text:Air Force
bar:Bayi color:Defunct from:1995 till:2020 text:Bayi
bar:Beijing color:Full from:1995 till:end text:Beijing
bar:Guangdong color:Full from:1995 till:end text:Guangdong
bar:Jiangsu color:Full from:1995 till:end text:Jiangsu
bar:Liaoning color:Full from:1995 till:end text:Liaoning
bar:Shandong color:Full from:1995 till:end text:Shandong
bar:Zhejiang1 color:Full from:1995 till:end text:Zhejiang Golden Bulls
bar:Shanghai color:Full from:1996 till:end text:Shanghai
bar:Sichuan1 color:Defunct from:1996 till:1999 text:Sichuan Pandas
bar:Olympians color:Defunct from:1998 till:2004 text:Beijing Olympians
bar:Jilin color:Full from:1998 till:end text:Jilin
bar:Hubei color:Defunct from:1999 till:2000 text:Hubei Mailyard
bar:Foshan shift: color:Full from:2016 till:end text:Guangzhou
bar:Foshan color:Defunct from:2010 till:2016 text:Foshan
bar:Foshan color:Defunct from:2001 till:2010 text:Shaanxi
bar:Shenzhen color:Defunct from:2001 till:2002 text:Shenzhen Yikang
bar:SinaLions color:Defunct from:2001 till:2003 text:Sina Lions
bar:HongKong color:Defunct from:2002 till:2003 text: Hong Kong
bar:Xinjiang color:Full from:2002 till:end text:Xinjiang
bar:Fujian color:Full from:2004 till:end text:Fujian
bar:Shanxi color:Full from:2006 till:end text:Shanxi
bar:Shanxi shift: color:Defunct from:2004 till:2006 text:Henan
bar:Yunnan color:Defunct from:2004 till:2009 text:Yunnan
bar:Dongguan shift: color:Full from:2015 till:end text:Shenzhen Leopards
bar:Dongguan color:Defunct from:2005 till:2015 text:Dongguan
bar:Zhejiang2 color:Full from:2006 till:end text:Zhejiang Guangsha Lions
bar:Qingdao color:Full from:2008 till:end text:Qingdao
bar:Tianjin color:Full from:2008 till:end text:Tianjin
bar:Sichuan2 color:Full from:2013 till:end text:Sichuan Blue Whales
bar:Chongqing color:Full from:2015 till:end text:Beikong
bar:Chongqing shift: color:Defunct from:2014 till:2015 text:Chongqing
bar:Tongxi color:Full from:2015 till:end text:Nanjing
bar:Tongxi shift: color:Defunct from:2014 till:2017 text:Tongxi

bar:Ningbo shift: color:Full from:2021 till:end text:Ningbo
ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:3 start:1995

Finals

In 2005, the league unveiled the Mou Zuoyun Cup, which was awarded for the first time to the winning team in the CBA Finals. Mou Zuoyun was a member of the Chinese men's national basketball team which competed at the 1936 Summer Olympics, and he later served as a coach and a pioneer in building Chinese basketball.
SeasonChampionsResultRunners-upFinals MVPNotesWinning team coach
1995–96Bayi Rockets2–0Guangdong Southern TigersHome-and-away series used for two seasonsWang Fei
1996–97Bayi Rockets2–0Liaoning HuntersWang Fei
1997–98Bayi Rockets3–0Liaoning HuntersBest-of-five series used for eight seasonsWang Fei
1998–99Bayi Rockets3–0Liaoning HuntersWang Fei
1999–00Bayi Rockets3–0Shanghai SharksWang Zhizhi Zhang Bin
2000–01Bayi Rockets3–1Shanghai SharksYao Ming Wang Fei
2001–02Shanghai Sharks3–1Bayi RocketsLiu Yudong Li Qiuping
2002–03Bayi Rockets3–1Guangdong Southern TigersLiu Yudong Adiljan Suleyman
2003–04Guangdong Southern Tigers3–1Bayi RocketsDu Feng Li Chunjiang
2004–05Guangdong Southern Tigers3–2Jiangsu DragonsZhu Fangyu Li Chunjiang
2005–06Guangdong Southern Tigers4–1Bayi RocketsYi Jianlian Best-of-seven series used since 2005–06Li Chunjiang
2006–07Bayi Rockets4–1Guangdong Southern TigersWang Zhizhi Adiljan Suleyman
2007–08Guangdong Southern Tigers4–1Liaoning HuntersZhu Fangyu Li Chunjiang
2008–09Guangdong Southern Tigers4–1Xinjiang Flying TigersZhu Fangyu Li Chunjiang
2009–10Guangdong Southern Tigers4–1Xinjiang Flying TigersZhu Fangyu Li Chunjiang
2010–11Guangdong Southern Tigers4–2Xinjiang Flying TigersWang Shipeng Li Chunjiang
2011–12Beijing Ducks4–1Guangdong Southern TigersLee Hsueh-lin Min Lulei
2012–13Guangdong Southern Tigers4–0Shandong Gold LionsYi JianlianDu Feng
Jonas Kazlauskas
2013–14Beijing Ducks4–2Xinjiang Flying TigersRandolph Morris Min Lulei
2014–15Beijing Ducks4–2Liaoning Flying LeopardsStephon Marbury Min Lulei
2015–16Sichuan Blue Whales4–1Liaoning Flying LeopardsHamed Haddadi Yang Xuezeng
2016–17Xinjiang Flying Tigers4–0Guangdong Southern TigersDarius Adams Li Qiuping
2017–18Liaoning Flying Leopards4–0Zhejiang Guangsha LionsLester Hudson Guo Shiqiang
2018–19Guangdong Southern Tigers4–0Xinjiang Flying TigersYi Jianlian Du Feng
2019–20Guangdong Southern Tigers2–1Liaoning Flying LeopardsSonny Weems Best-of-three series due to the COVID-19 pandemicDu Feng
2020–21Guangdong Southern Tigers2–1Liaoning Flying LeopardsHu Mingxuan Best-of-three series due to the COVID-19 pandemicDu Feng
2021–22Liaoning Flying Leopards4–0Zhejiang Guangsha LionsZhao Jiwei Best-of-seven series returnsYang Ming
2022–23Liaoning Flying Leopards4–0Zhejiang Golden BullsZhao Jiwei Yang Ming
2023–24Liaoning Flying Leopards4–0Xinjiang Flying TigersKyle Fogg Yang Ming
2024–25Zhejiang Lions4–2Beijing DucksBarry Brown Jr. Wang Bo