"Welcome Li Kaier! With the promotion and support of all parties, Li Kaier has obtained Chinese nationality this morning and met Yao Ming, chairman of the Chinese Basketball Association..." The Chinese Basketball Association released a message on July 24 saying that basketball Athlete Li Kaier officially became a Chinese citizen on the same day, and he officially became the first naturalized Chinese men's basketball player.
Next, he will fly to Slovenia to join the Chinese men's basketball team who are training there as soon as possible, so as to prepare for the World Cup. The addition of Li Kaier will definitely improve the strength of the Chinese men's basketball team, but how much it can improve depends on whether he can integrate well into this team that is unfamiliar to him.
"Now I finally found a home"
NBA Timberwolves forward Li Kaier (Kyle Anderson) has long attracted the attention of Chinese fans. Hall averaged 28.4 minutes per game for the Timberwolves, contributing 9.4 points, 5.3 rebounds and 4.9 assists, which is a standard NBA starting-level performance. The more important reason is that he has Chinese ancestry. Li Kaier was born in New York, USA. His maternal grandfather was Li Chongxin, a Hakka who immigrated to Jamaica. He was a pure Chinese. Therefore, Li Kaier has one-eighth of Chinese ancestry.
In 2012, Li Kaier entered the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and it was in that year that he ushered in the opportunity to exchange with the school team in China. As an important part of the "Sino-US Sports and Arts Week", he followed the UCLA men's basketball team to Shanghai for three exchange games. This exchange gave Li Kaier mother and son a chance to see the land where their grandfather lived.
In the summer of 2018, Li Kaier, who was playing for the NBA Spurs at the time, and his mother, Susan, returned to Xinmu Xincun, Shenzhen, China, the hometown of their great-grandfather in order to fulfill their wish to recognize their ancestors. The local family relatives warmly welcomed him, and the patriarch gave him the Chinese name Li Kaier, and officially included Li Kaier in the family tree. Li Kaier once said emotionally: "I finally got to know this family. In the past few decades, I didn't know my Chinese blood at all, and now I have finally found a home."
This is also the case of Li Kaier and others Naturalized players, including several naturalized stars in Chinese football, are different. Li Kaier has a strong sense of identity with Chinese culture, he does not charge high naturalization fees, and has a certain determination and attitude towards fighting for the motherland. But his road to naturalization still went through a long process. Yao Ming, chairman of the Chinese Basketball Association, also responded to Li Kaier's naturalization issue. "Everyone may have the experience of changing their account. From one city to another, the work of naturalizing players is very similar to the nature of changing their account."
Fortunately, we finally ushered in this good news.
The new "core" of the Chinese men's basketball team?
Kyle Lee's father was a high school basketball coach in New Jersey, USA. Influenced by his father, Li Kaier was particularly interested in basketball. At the age of three, he joined his first basketball camp. At St. Anthony's High School, Kyle led the team to back-to-back New Jersey state championships and was named state player of the year his senior year.
Although Kyle has excellent ball-handling skills, neither his father nor his high school coach hoped to train him to be a point guard. Because of this, Li Kaier's style of play has become more unique, and his ability to control the rhythm of the court is extremely outstanding.
In the 2013-14 season, Li Kaier averaged 14.9 points and 6.5 assists per game in the NCAA. His strong ability to control the rhythm began to help him gallop on the field. He became the first single season in the history of the NCAA Division I to score 500 points and 300 rebounds A player with 200 assists, led his team to win the Pac-12 Championship and reached the top 16 of the NCAA.
In the 2014 NBA draft, Li Kaier was selected by the Spurs in the 30th place in the first round, and signed a 4-year contract worth 5.58 million US dollars, officially in front of the fans. When playing for the Spurs, as a forward, he often used his footsteps to create good opportunities for the team's offense. The nickname "Human Creepy Essence" was born and spread widely. Many Chinese fans also knew Li Kaier at this stage.
In any case, Li Kaier, who is now in his prime, is very hopeful to become the new "core" of the Chinese men's basketball team, and is expected to help the national team get rid of the decline in recent years. But for the men's basketball coach Djordjevic, who has only taken over the men's basketball team for half a year, if such a new member with outstanding strength is almost a "blank sheet" for the team, how can he pass the change? Tactics and style of play, maximizing Li Kaier's energy has become a new problem in front of him.
