The Chinese Basketball Association (Chinese: 中国男子篮球职业联赛; pinyin: Zhōngguó Nánzǐ Lánqiú Zhíyè Liánsài), often abbreviated to the CBA, is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in China.
The league is commonly known as the CBA, and this acronym is often used even in Chinese. There is also a Women's Chinese Basketball Association (WCBA) for women.
The CBA should also not be confused with the National Basketball League (NBL), which is a professional "Division 2" minor league.
A few Chinese CBA players, such as Yao Ming, Wang Zhizhi, Yi Jianlian, Mengke Bateer, and Sun Yue, have also played in the NBA. Conversely, a limited number of foreign players are allowed for each CBA team. Notable players include NBA All-Stars Stephon Marbury, Steve Francis, Kenyon Martin, Tracy McGrady, and Gilbert Arenas, as well as NBA players who were CBA All-Stars J.R. Smith and Aaron Brooks.
Read more about Chinese Basketball Association: Background, Team Names, Current Clubs, CBA Championship Series, CBA Finals Appearances
Famous quotes containing the words basketball and/or association:
“Perhaps basketball and poetry have just a few things in common, but the most important is the possibility of transcendence. The opposite is labor. In writing, every writer knows when he or she is laboring to achieve an effect. You want to get from here to there, but find yourself willing it, forcing it. The equivalent in basketball is aiming your shot, a kind of strained and usually ineffective purposefulness. What you want is to be in some kind of flow, each next moment a discovery.”
—Stephen Dunn (b. 1939)
“It is not merely the likeness which is precious ... but the association and the sense of nearness involved in the thing ... the fact of the very shadow of the person lying there fixed forever! It is the very sanctification of portraits I think—and it is not at all monstrous in me to say ... that I would rather have such a memorial of one I dearly loved, than the noblest Artist’s work ever produced.”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)