Time for the Ducks to move on up

No offense, Shougang Gymnasium, but you don't deserve this team.

As the Beijing Ducks plowed through the CBA Finals - eventually polishing off the defending champion Guangdong Southern Tigers to claim their first league championship with a riveting 124-121 victory in Game 5 on Friday night - one thing became very clear.

This is a team that's outgrown its home.

Suddenly, the Beijing Ducks are the league's marquee club.

They captured the imagination of the nation's capital, bringing a rare title - of any kind - to a city that's been starving for success for a decade. They did it the hard way, too, knocking off a Guangdong team that won seven of the previous eight championships.

They have the league's best and highest-profile player in Stephon Marbury, a former NBA All-Star who's coming back for at least another year after a season in which he connected with Chinese fans in a way perhaps no foreign star has before.

They also look like a team that could still be doing this five years from now, with a collection of young, talented local players who aren't going anywhere.

And they play their home games in a stadium that closely resembles a dive bar.

As the crowd of 18,000-plus lost its collective mind after the game on Friday, jumping on tables and spilling drinks as Marbury took a victory lap around the court, it was impossible to imagine shrinking all that madness down and stuffing it back into the 6,000-seat Shougang venue next season.

Put the logistical issues aside for a minute. I'm not going to pretend to know the ins and outs of arena contracts in China, and, clearly, giving up their current rent-free home wouldn't be an easy decision.

I do know this though. Shougang is in the middle of nowhere. It's dark, it's small, and the only food to be found comes from what amount to little card tables on the concourse. In it's own way, it's a great, gritty atmosphere for die-hard fans, but it feels more like you're there to get a pool cue broken over your head than watch a professional basketball game.

The MasterCard Center feels like the big time. The three games it hosted during the CBA Finals were a revelation.

Bright, wide concourses, good hot food, comfortable seats and giant video screen hanging over center court. It feels every bit like a building in which a gold medal was won four years ago.

And better still: even though it's triple the capacity of Shougang, not only did it sell out every night, but there were hordes of scalpers lining the streets both buying and selling tickets. Just maybe there's enough money to be made in tickets and concessions to fund the move. Shougang sold out all season, so it's almost impossible to judge what the upper boundary is for attendance.

If the Ducks want to get some momentum out of this title, there's no better way than upgrading their home.

They're kings of the league; it's time to move to the palace.

Dusty Lane is a sports copy editor who is currently dead last in his own NCAA bracket pool, so don't listen to anything he says. Reach him at dustylane@chinadaily.com.cn