What now for Hong Kong basketball? Naturalised players, expanded league among suggestions
City teams’ failure to make the cut for Asian Games will mean a rethink on how to improve the sport – but it may not be all doom and gloom
Naturalising players, hiring overseas coaches and improving the standard and scale of local basketball could “save” the sport in Hong Kong, players, basketball officials and executives said on Thursday.
Earlier this week, the city’s men’s and women’s teams discovered their regional rankings of 26th and 21st respectively were not good enough to get them into the Asian Games in Japan.
It will be the first time in more than 30 years that the men have missed the Games. For the women, it would have been a fourth consecutive appearance dating back to their debut in Incheon in 2014.
Benny Chau Chi-yan, general manager of the city’s youth team, said naturalising players would be one way to lift the teams.
“We had been and are still working on a few names,” said Chau, who is also a vice-president of the Basketball Association of Hong Kong, China. “We knew this was one way to lift our team to a higher level, to bring us on par with the other teams in the region.
“But there are limitations. Speeding up the processes might not be possible because everything was written in the Basic Law – the seven-year permanent residency requirement is right there.”