Beijing in Seventh Heaven

Updated: 2011-12-06 08:00

(China Daily)

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Beijing in Seventh Heaven

Beijing Ducks guard Stephon Marbury (right) tries to get by Shanxi Brave Dragons guard Lu Xiaoming during their CBA game on Sunday. [Provided to China Daily]

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My recent fortunes in life have me on such a natural high.

I am at peace. I'm loving life in China. I'm making power moves on the basketball court as well as off. The best thing is I am part of CBA history.

On Sunday, my team, the Beijing Ducks, reached a franchise milestone. We got off to the best start in the past 15 years.

We are undefeated at 7-0. Our last win came against the first team I actually played for when I arrived in China a few years ago.

We are in first place in the tough CBA league in part because of the NBA stars playing this season.

To top it off, we beat two of our biggest basketball rivals in the same year and that has never happened before.

Beijing in Seventh Heaven

We first beat CBA champion Guangdong. The following week, we won against a Xinjiang team we haven't beaten in four years. In fact, Xinjiang swept us 3-0 in the playoffs last year.

I'm telling you, I am feeling so good right now, and I am just honored, really honored, to be one of the players who have helped the Ducks write this amazing storybook start.

However, this excellent beginning would have been nearly impossible if it were not for the help of our sixth man - the Beijing fans.

They have given us a great deal of confidence because we feed off of their energy and support.

Believe me, we appreciate them. We appreciate the fact that they have stood in long lines for hours just to buy our home-game tickets. We appreciate and love each and every one of them for their passion, loyalty and cheers for the team. They just don't know how much that excites and fuels us on the basketball court especially when we have needed that extra push to win close games this season. And you know we have had a few.

In fact, we have won at least three of our games this season by a single point or two.

What I love is that all of our games have had a playoff-type atmosphere, whether we are at home or on the road or playing on one of the national television channels, CCTV5 or BTV6.

This show of fan support and love reminds me of when I would go and see our soccer team, Beijing Guo'an, play at Workers' Stadium.

Our fans are proving they are the best in the CBA, just like we are proving that we can match up with the league's elite teams.

Yet, we know our team is not as good as our undefeated record suggests and still needs to improve a lot.

As long as we remain as one, focused and humble, I really believe we can achieve goals teams only dream of.

Our next goal - defeat the Bayi Rockets. We play them on Wednesday. The Rockets are good. Still, we think we can win, especially if our sixth man shows up. So, we'll be looking for you. Love is love.

Sincerely yours, Starbury.