The first stage of the 2019-20 CBA season restart was complete on Saturday.

No one seems to challenge Guangdong

The Guangdong Southern Tigers achieved eight straight wins, averaging 128.6 points and allowing only 84 points per game. In fact, they only allowed 100+points in two games in which Guangdong themselves scored 134 and 143 points, respectively. By the way, the team's best player Yi Jianlian only played in four of the eight games.

With a 36-2 record at the moment, Guangdong only need one win to pocket the regular-season championship. However, such a huge advantage did not stop Guangdong's head coach Du Feng from glaring and roaring at every careless move or mistake his players made on the court.

Guangdong do not just want to win, they want absolute dominance in every game on their way to the 10th CBA title in franchise history.

Liaoning should have done better

No team can beat the Liaoning Flying Leopards to become the most disappointing one in the first stage of the restart. They won the CBA championship two years ago and kept the major part of that squad. They have the national team's back-court pair, Guo Ailun, and Zhao Jiwei. They even signed O.J. Mayo, the third selection in the 2008 NBA Draft, before the restart.

Then Liaoning suffered four losses in seven games, watching their ranking drop from No. 3 to No. 7. Coach Guo Shiqiang, who has been working with the team for 12 seasons, resigned. Sure they won't miss the playoffs, but isn't that too little to ask such a team to do?

Liaoning were not the only team that failed to meet people's expectations. The Shandong Heroes and the Shenzhen Aviators, which had first-class domestic squads, did not achieve their goals. Shandong suffered five losses in eight games, including a three-loss streak. The team dropped from No. 4 to No. 10. Shenzhen, though had promising domestic big-man pair of Shen Zijie and Li Muhao, kept losing to playoff competitors. Currently, they only rank 13th with a 17-21 record and are two games behind the playoff zone (No. 12).

Everybody loves Zhejiang Lions

Many CBA teams were unable to bring foreign aid to restart because of the COVID-19 pandemic and thus had to send all-Chinese squads to the court. The Zhejiang Lions were the most successful because of their 6-2 record in the eight games of the first stage and the incredible performance of the team's home-grown players.

Sun Minghui played all eight games for Zhejiang and averaged 19 points, 9.4 assists. In the team's win over Liaoning, Sun Minghui put down 34 points, seven rebounds, and 10 assists, beating Guo Ailun in the competition of "who is China's best point guard?" In the game against the Shanghai Sharks, Sun Minghui delivered career-high 16 assists, helping Zhejiang win 95-90.

Hu Jinqiu, in the first stage of the restart, already became Zhejiang's most reliable pillar in the paint as he dropped 25.4 points and 14.3 rebounds. He managed to achieve double-double in seven of the eight games. In Zhejiang's win over Shanghai, Hu Jinqiu claimed career-high 38 points.

Another young surprise was the Zhejiang Golden Bulls' 21-year-old Cheng Shuaipeng, who scored 43 points, the highest by any Chinese player in the first stage, in the game against the Nanjing Monkey Kings. In fact, Cheng Shuaipeng once got 39 points in one game last season, but he could not always turn on full power in offense because of the team's reliance on foreign aid pair in this area. Now that the Golden Bulls had to go with the all-Chinese squad, Cheng Shuaipeng had and took the opportunity to do himself justice in scoring.

May injury stay away from Nanjing Monkey Kings

There ere only three teams able to assemble three foreign players in the first stage of the restart and the Nanjing Monkey Kings were one of them. That's why the team were aiming at making the playoffs for the first time in franchise history.

Nonetheless, they were beaten by misfortune and injuries. On June 23, in the game against the Beijing Ducks, Nanjing's forward Wang Rui suffered a torn left Achilles and was ruled out for the rest of the season. Five days later, in the game against the Bayi Rockets, Nanjing's captain Song Jianhua had his right shoulder dislocated and broke one of his left forefingers, saying goodbye to the remainder of the season.

Then in the game against Liaoning on Tuesday, Nanjing's young man He Jingjia was hurt when he was competing for a rebound and never played in any game since then, Two days later, in the game against THE Zhejiang Golden Bulls, another young player of Nanjing, Sun Siyao was elbowed on the head from behind, though there was no intracerebral hemorrhage or concussion in him, Sun Siyao sat on all the following games.

Nanjing's first scorer Joseph Young was not immune from injury either. His old knee problem caught him again. As a result, Nanjing only had eight players to send in their last game against the Xinjiang Flying Tigers on Friday.

Currently, Nanjing are only 15-23, four games behind the No. 12 Fujian Sturgeons, The playoffs already seem very remote for the team this season.