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With the CBA set to add a team from the NBL next season, clubs like Shaanxi are shelling out good money to get high level imports, such as Craig Smith, to both win the league and increase their promotion chances.

In China, searching for a late night snack is kind of like going into 7-11 at 11:45pm to see that the guang dong zhu is still bubbling: Technically it’s available, but it’s probably best avoided.

That’s how we would best sum up the NBL (National Basketball League). Yeah, it’s around. And in the Chinese basketball summertime, where the non-national team pickings are generally slim, that counts for something. But it’s still not very good.

Nor is it very productive towards anything. Officially, the NBL operates as China’s second-tier professional basketball league and like it’s distant relative, the CBA, it is governed under the all encompassing umbrella of the Chinese Basketball Association. And oh, there’s quite a bit of on-court brawls, too. But what it actually is or what it actually does, has largely remained a mystery to anyone who actually cares enough to ask those questions.

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The frequently used, “My legs are dead,” is no longer a valid excuse to get out of playing a game of hoops.

Not after seeing this.

Qin Xulei, like many other 13 year-olds, loves basketball. He lives in Luoyang, Henan where he attends middle school. He plays ball with his classmates when he can during the schoolday, and gets in extra practice everyday when his class lets out.

None of that makes Qin special. That he has no legs, however — and chooses to play without the aid of a wheelchair — that is special.

More amazing: The kid is nice with it. Just take a look at the video below.

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Starting your day right with China’s favorite street breakfast and a bunch of links…

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In a country where the dragon holds significant cultural importance, perhaps its fitting that one will be the next head coach of the national team.

Ending a long search, the CBA announced the appointment of Panagiotis Giannakis as head coach of the Chinese men’s national team. Nicknamed “The Dragon” for his long reign of dominance over European and international basketball, the 56 year-old will become the fourth foreign head coach in Chinese basketball history.

According to reports, the contract is a four-year agreement that will take Giannakis all the way through the 2016 Rio Olympics.

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Ill-fated ‘80s music duo? Fast-food lunch combo? Bachelor grocery list?

The answer is D) None of the above. Here are some notes about two bits of news that might be meaningful to you if you have both a mildly unhealthy appetite for basketball and a streak of Chi-curiosity. They are about two ballplayers whose careers will likely never come in direct contact, yet which are bizarre mirror images of each other.

T-Mac, of course, is Tracy McGrady, the former NBA scoring wizard who spent last season in what was, to some, a startingly unimpressive late-career stroll through a season with the Qingdao Eagles of the Chinese Basketball Association. Tang is T-Mac’s basketball opposite, a teenaged hoops prodigy from Jiangsu province who went to the United States for high school so that he could be a student and an athlete. Tang Zihao is called Chris Tang in the States, Chris for the point guard’s sporting hero, Chris Paul, and Tang as in the powdered sugary-orange drink, not as it’s pronounced back home in southeastern China.

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Hmmmm…..

It’s kind of an oldie, but it’s still a goodie… Remember when Michael Jordan sued Qiaodan Sports for ripping off his name? Well, now Qiaodan is coming back with a lawsuit of their own against Jordan to the tune of $8 million bucks.

The Fujian-based company’s suit was accepted by a Quanzhou court on April 2nd after they claimed Jordan tarnished their reputation and delayed their plans for an initial public offering on the Chinese stock market. Qiaodan Sports, founded in June 2000, was approved by the China Securities Regulatory Commission in November 2011 for listing on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

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The San Antonio Spurs are hurting as they prepare for the NBA Playoffs which start on April 20, so they’ve decided to sign a player whose hurt them in the past: Tracy McGrady.

As announced yesterday, the 15-year NBA veteran, who played this season in the Chinese Basketball Association with the Qingdao Eagles, has signed a deal for the rest of the season, including the soon-approaching post-season.

Though the move is surprising given its timing, it does have some logic. It is no surprise that coach Gregg Popovich often rest his top players from time to time and Monday night’s game against the Golden State Warriors was a given as he looks to give them much needed rest before starting what they hope to be a deep playoff run.

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The 2012-13 CBA season is officially over, which means most teams will be running three-man weaves for the next eight months as they wait for next season to start. For the teams that didn’t make the playoffs, that process has likely already begun. To ensure your squad isn’t forgotten, Leon Zhang is writing an end-of-season ode to every team in the league. In his ongoing series of CBA Farewell Letters, Leon Zhang says goodbye today to the Jilin Northeast Tigers, who finished in 14th place.

Jilin, we know many have told you that anyone can be special special — including you — but here’s the hard truth: this season you weren’t.

You are that team who recently has always had a losing record, characterized by an overmatched and raggedy group of youngsters, the overburdened imports, and mismanagement. We should add that there’s nothing wrong with being so ordinary. If you’re a player, honestly, you did the best you could.

In fact, count us in with anyone that finds it hard to criticize Jilin. By all accounts, though this wasn’t a talented team by any stretch of the imagination, it was a group that was tough and fought in every game. The plucky little underdog even pulled out some opportunistic wins, case in point a thrilling Round 19 victory against Beijing, and it’s easy to admire Dewarick Spencer (28.6 points on 53.7% shooting) and Samuel Hoskin (a walking double double with 20.9 points and 10.3 rebounds) for their production and general lack of sulking in the face of such monotonous mediocrity. It’s credit to the players on the team that we really haven’t heard much from Jilin all season, no drama, just a workmanlike effort each and every time out on the court, for a win every three games.

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