China announces 16-player list ahead of 2023 FIBA World Cup Asian qualifiers

BEIJING - China announced its 16-player national men's basketball team on Sunday in preparation for the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup Asian qualifiers later this month.

The Guangdong Southern Tigers and the Liaoning Flying Leopards, the finalists of last year's Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) season, each has four players called up for training sessions to be held in Ningbo, East China's Zhejiang Province between November 15 and 22.

Guangdong's Zhou Peng, Ren Junfei, Xu Jie and Zhao Rui have been called up to the national squad, which is also led by their club coach Du Feng.

Han Dejun, Guo Ailun, Zhao Jiwei and Zhang Zhenlin are the representatives from Liaoning.

"The players are selected on the basis of our coaching group's evaluation toward their performance in the CBA league, and consideration of their physical condition and their opponents' style of play," explained Du.

The eight other recruits are Shanghai Sharks center Wang Zhelin, Wu Qian of the Zhejiang Golden Bulls, the Zhejiang Lions duo of Hu Jinqiu and Sun Minghui, Shenzhen Aviators center Shen Zijie, Qi Lin and Abdusalam Abdurexit from the Xinjiang Flying Tigers, and Zhou Qi from the Australian National Basketball League (NBL).

China will play a double-header against Japan during the first window of the Asian qualifiers on November 27 and 28.

Du expected all the players to cherish every opportunity of playing for the national team and show their worth in international competitions.

"We hope to reflect our mentality as the Chinese team, whether facing adversity or being in a leading position down the stretch," he said.

China's other opponents in Group B of the Asian qualifiers are Australia and Chinese Taipei.

The 2023 FIBA World Cup will be staged in Indonesia, Japan and the Philippines, marking the first time that the tournament will be hosted by multiple countries.