Chinese basketball forward Ding Yanyuhang joined the Shanghai Sharks for the coming 2022-23 Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) season. In an interview with Shanghai-based sports channel Great Sports, he reflected on the painfully long recovery process from the injuries that paused his career for over three years.

Ding was once one of the most promising stars in China after being named twice Most Valuable Player (MVP) in the 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons. However, his career took a sudden unfavorable turn when he suffered a string of foot and knee injuries since 2018.

For as long as 1,200 days, Ding did not play in any professional basketball game until he made it back to the CBA last season. Injuries not only damaged his athleticism, but also made him suffer mentally because he lost three of his best years (from 25 to 28) as a basketball player.

"It's tough. My injuries were strange," Ding said in the interview. "I have never thought it would take me this long to recover. I have been hopeful the whole time, but it was a long process."

Though it's painful for Ding to stay away from basketball for so long, he believes he grew stronger mentally during this process. "After you go through certain things, you learn to let go and wouldn't feel too much regret over things. We all have to move on," he said.

Ding suffered the most from the cruel fact that he had to watch teammates play on the court without being able to join them. "In the FIBA Basketball World Cup [in 2019], the national team games and CBA games, I really wanted to go there and make contributions but I couldn't do that. It's one of my biggest regrets. I felt really bad," Ding told Great Sports.

In the 2021-22 CBA season, Ding played 20 games for the Shandong Heroes. "I think I had only recovered by 60 percent. I had to drop my usual style of charging the rim against front defense," he said.

Ding will join hands with his long-time friends Wang Zhelin and Luo Hanchen in the Sharks. They were teammates since the time they played together in the Chinese under-16 national team.

"Wang has always been a hardworking player who is always energetic on the court and spares no efforts grabbing rebounds and defending," Ding said.

It will be the first time for Ding to work with Li Chunjiang, who took over the Sharks in 2021 as head coach. The two have known each other for a long time, but only as opponents.

"I think coach Li is very real. He is strict and pushes you to do better. When I met him, he's different than I thought. We talked a lot off the court and he was nice. He is the same age as my dad so he strikes me like a senior in the family. But when we work together on the court, he becomes very strict," Ding said.