CBA to start new season by putting all games in Zhejiang
CGTN
Yao Ming, president of the Chinese Basketball Association. /VCG

Yao Ming, president of the Chinese Basketball Association. /VCG

The new CBA season will start on October 17, leaving only one month for all the preparations. According to multiple sports media outlets in China, including Tencent Sports, at least the first stage of the new season will happen in Zhuji City, east China's Zhejiang Province, instead of the home cities of all 20 teams.

The 2019-20 sports season took a great hit from the COVID-19 pandemic and basketball was not immune from it. The CBA had been suspended for months and when it returned, all the games were concentrated in two cities, Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province, and Dongguan, south China's Guangdong Province, behind closed doors for public health concerns.

Thanks to the joint efforts by all the teams and the medical staff, the rest of the CBA season went well with not even one infected case. The league also began to allow fans to enter the arena starting from the semifinals in Qingdao and that also went smoothly until the end.

Zhong Nanshan (L) and his wife Li Shaofen (C) show off the No. 36 jerseys they received from CBA president Yao Ming before the CBA game between the Guangdong Southern Tigers and the Jiangsu Dragons in Dongguan, south China's Guangdong Province, July 3, 2020. /VCG

Zhong Nanshan (L) and his wife Li Shaofen (C) show off the No. 36 jerseys they received from CBA president Yao Ming before the CBA game between the Guangdong Southern Tigers and the Jiangsu Dragons in Dongguan, south China's Guangdong Province, July 3, 2020. /VCG

Considering that there may be a second wave of coronavirus outbreak at the end of 2020, the league made the right decision to concentrate all the games in two cities again. Like last time, all 20 teams will be divided into two groups and compete with each other in Zhuji.

The ongoing off-season has been much noisier than before as many teams were busy negotiating new contracts with their franchise players, negotiating trades to improve their squads and looking for new foreign talent.

Since the defending champion Guangzhou Southern Tigers may have to wait a year before their best player, Yi Jianlian, returns from a ruptured Achilles tendon, the team will miss the dominance they once enjoyed. Teams like the Liaoning Flying Leopards, the Beijing Ducks and the Zhejiang Lions, which, by the way, will play at home, will seize the opportunity to claim the throne.