Li wants to see small-ball wizardry

New national program head coach will build team on speed, precision

With China hosting the 2019 FIBA World Cup, it's up to new national program head coach Li Nan to merge the dual-team rosters into one cohesive unit.

A sharpshooter for Team China at the 2008 Olympics, Li said he wants his new-look squad to play small and agile－like the NBA champion Golden State Warriors.

"The small-ball game is the latest trend in modern basketball. Fast and precise. I would love to see our team follow that direction and close the gap with the world's best," Li said of what he expects in the months ahead.

His appointment as head coach on Wednesday marked the end of an experimental program that featured two parallel national teams－Red and Blue－with independent coaches and rosters, aimed at doubling the opportunities for young talent at the international level.

The initiative was part of reforms introduced by eight-time NBA All-Star Yao Ming after he was elected chairman of the Chinese Basketball Association in February 2017.

The re forms were designed to bolster the chance for breakthroughs ahead of the nation hosting next year's FIBA World Cup.

After guiding Team Red to the gold medal at last month's Asian Games in Indonesia, Li beat out Team Blue boss Du Feng, his former national teammate, for the reins to the combined Cup team.

From May 2017 to earlier this month, Li led Team Red to 19 victories in 27 international games, while Du's squad managed to win 22 of 35.

Kuang Lubin, a member of CBA's performance review panel, said both coaches deserve credit for their tutelage of young talent, but Li won out for his international vision.

"When he was a player, he learned from China's best and some of the world's elite coaches," said Kuang, a national team player in the 1980s. "He knows how to develop Chinese players in the context of an evolving international style."

Considered the all-time greatest shooter in CBA history, Li won eight league championships with the Bayi Rockets between 1995 and 2007, and was a formidable member on China's eighth-place Olympic teams in 2004 and 2008.

With two rosters loaded with young guns hungry for the international spotlight, it's up to Li to make the cuts and rebuild chemistry in the merged force ahead of the World Cup.

"It's a pressing challenge that no one has faced before," Li said of the short time frame for merging the two rosters.

"My No 1 criterion is that the players prove to me that they take pride in representing their country and are eager to compete on the national level as hard as they do in the league."

Houston Rockets' second-year center Zhou Qi, Dallas Mavericks' training camp signing Ding Yangyuhang and Golden State Warriors' summer league player Abdusalam Abdurishit are expected to make the final roster from Team Red, while veteran forward Yi Jianlian, aggressive guard Guo Ailun and defense specialist Zhou Peng are hot favorites from Team Blue.

"Talent-wise I am not worried. I just have to make them fight as one as soon as possible to compete for the best result at the World Cup and qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as the highest-finished Asian team," said Li.