Metta World Peace, Ron Artest, Panda Friend. Whatever the name is on his medical form and the roster chart, the diagnosis is still the same: ‘Recurrence of knee injury – recovery time: three-to-five weeks.’
In the NBA, this would mean a spell on the sidelines. But in the Chinese Basketball Association, it is often the end of the season for an overseas player.
This is the ruthless nature of life in the CBA, particularly for the league’s American imports. They’re brought in to score points, but as soon as a foreigner gets injured, his team quickly moves on to the next guy. There are painfully few exceptions to the rule, and World Peace may well be the next former NBA pro to leave China behind.
The Sichuan Blue Whales, the team that brought him to China, have already found a replacement in former Philadelphia big man Daniel Orton, and to say things are looking ominous would be an understatement.
For now, World Peace remains in China and assures local fans that he will be back in a Sichuan jersey before the end of what has been a wretched season for the Blue Whales. Yet it is unclear if the front office shares World Peace’s aspirations given that their team is 3-12 and sitting third from bottom in the league standings. Defensively the team is a mess, giving up an average of 115 points a game, and possesses one of the worst frontcourts in the CBA. Orton doesn’t have the resume of a World Peace, but at 6’10”, 275lbs, he is an immediate upgrade to anything Sichuan has at the center position.
All of this is threatening to end what has been a wildly entertaining winter for World Peace and the CBA in general. Despite the knowledge that he was going to a struggling team, the much-traveled American forward threw himself into the task at hand and has been embraced by the local fan base. Indeed, as a former teammate of Kobe Bryant and Yao Ming, both of whom are revered in China, World Peace could have coasted his way through a lucrative five months in Sichuan. But instead, World Peace has been a model pro in the CBA, a league that relies heavily on foreign players but whose fans still regard many of them as mercenaries.
According to a couple of reports, World Peace has been running training sessions and working with the team’s younger players, many of whom grew up watching him on TV. Residents in the Blue Whales’ home city of Chengdu have also seen him out and about, wandering the city and signing autographs to anyone who comes up asking for one. For a while, he was even regularly trying to eat Sichuan’s notoriously spicy local cuisine, which is in stark contrast to many foreigners in China who, regardless of their profession, tend to stick to western food.
Unfortunately for World Peace, all the goodwill he has generated off the court doesn’t matter when it’s game time and the Blue Whales are trying to win. Sichuan, who were promoted to the CBA in 2013, are a classic example of an expansion team in its early stages. With a roster made up of castoffs from other teams, most of the local players simply aren’t good enough for the top tier of Chinese basketball. This has meant that World Peace and the other team’s other American, former D-Leaguer Mike Efevberha, have been forced to try and win games by themselves.
It may well have been the effort needed to carry a depleted team that caused World Peace’s latest injury in a game against the Foshan Long Lions. The forward scored 26 points in the game but also appears to have re-aggravated a knee injury that blighted his final few months with the Lakers and then for much of his season in New York with the Knicks.
When Sichuan’s doctors took a look at the injury themselves, they were not hopeful and estimated that it would take nearly a month or more before World Peace could come back. This, in turn, meant that the team’s front office had little choice but to bring in a replacement. Despite averaging 19 points a game, the team’s genuinely beloved veteran was going to be no use if he was on the sidelines, and the call was made to bring in Orton for a workout.
Given that there has been no formal announcement that World Peace is done in Sichuan, it may well be that the Blue Whales are seeing what they have in their new signing before making any hasty decisions. Orton will play in the next few games for the team and if he impresses, the Blue Whales might stick with him for the rest of the season, particularly if he links up well with Efevberha, one of China’s most fluid scorers.
In the meantime, all World Peace can do is to wait and see what happens. This though is the reality of life in the CBA; nothing is personal, it’s just business.
Andrew Crawford is a long-time Chinese basketball writer and a former beat reporter in the Chinese Basketball Association. His twitter address is @shouldersgalore.