League gets new champs, not basketball

The curtain has come down on the 2015-16 season of the Chinese Basketball Association. But the drama it generated through its finals series still lingers. Entering the best-of-seven series as the underdogs, Chengdu-based Sichuan Blue Whales club (also known as Sichuan Jinqiang) sprung the greatest surprise by defeating traditional powerhouse Liaoning Feibao 4-1 last week to claim the franchise's first league championship since being promoted to CBA in 2013.

But the celebrations of Sichuan Blue Whales have been somewhat mooted because of criticisms for its reliance on three foreign stalwarts-Iranian center Hamed Haddadi and the American duo of Mike Harris and Justin Dentmon, who proved too strong to handle for Liaoning's two foreign players.

Allowing five teams, including Sichuan Blue Whales, with the worst records from the previous season to sign a third player from an Asian country in addition to the quota of two foreigners which the other 19 clubs (except for the no-foreigner army team Bayi Rockets) have to be satisfied with has been the CBA rule since 2008, in order to strike the right balance in the competition.