FIBA releases International Basketball Migration Report 2019
Li Xiang

FIBA has released the International Basketball Migration Report 2019 on global basketball developments for the past year.

USA in the 2018-19 season exported 1,861 players to the rest of the world, more than any other country. The other three basketball heavyweights – Spain, France, Germany – all contributed over 400 players. China ranked No. 19, sending 104 players abroad.

Spain topped the import section by introducing 831 players in the 2018-19 season, followed by Germany (531), USA and France (435), Italy (398) and Australia (361). China again ranked No. 19 by importing 123 players, the same number as Portugal.

Ty Lawson #8 of the Shandong Heroes in action against the Jiangsu Dragons, March 20, 2019. /VCG Photo

Ty Lawson #8 of the Shandong Heroes in action against the Jiangsu Dragons, March 20, 2019. /VCG Photo

Of the 831 overseas players that arrived at the Liga ACB, 219 came form USA. By contrast, Spain only sent 25 players to USA. As for China, the country welcomed 54 from while exporting 42 players to USA.

China's CBA and Argentina's LNB both have 20 teams, the most in the world. The Chinese league had 460 games, the second-most in the world, trailing 540 of Japan's JBL but ahead of LNB's 380.

Having shared the tallest average height of 198.2 centimeters with Liga ACB, the CBA teams had the highest average team points per game of 89 points, followed by Australia's NBL (88.9 points) and Germany's BBL (84.5 points). The average age of the Chinese league of 26.1 years shared the No. 7 ranking with Germany. By contrast, the JBL was the oldest (28.6 years).

Donatas Motiejunas #12 of Shandong Heroes penetrates in the game against the Beijing Ducks, March 9, 2019. /VCG Photo

Donatas Motiejunas #12 of Shandong Heroes penetrates in the game against the Beijing Ducks, March 9, 2019. /VCG Photo

Thanks to the foreign-player-limiting-policy, only 20.2 percent of the CBA players were from overseas, trailing far behind Liga ACB's 70.1 percent, BBL's 59.6 percent and the 56.1 percent of Italy's LBA. Nonetheless, even with limited time on the court, foreign players were still making irreplaceable contributions in the Chinese league. The average time per game for a foreign player in the CBA was 24.7 minutes, the third-highest in the world, only next to the KBL (28.6 minutes) and Turkey's BSL (26.6 minutes).

In youth development, though the CBA teams gave U21 national players an average of 7.9 minutes on the court, the third-highest among all leagues, U21 national young men only had a ratio of 12.8 percent in the league.

The 2019-20 CBA regular season will begin on November 1.