CBA team Guangdong Hongyuan held a jersey retirement ceremony for Yi Jianlian at home on Friday (29th) to commemorate the famous player who has played for the team for more than ten seasons. Watching the No. 9 jersey rise, the UAE's eyes were filled with tears. After the ceremony, the exhibition match of the "Hongyuan Five Tigers" also made fans overjoyed. However, the huge controversy over the battle of Guangsha in Guangdong before the ceremony almost stole the limelight from Yi Jianlian.
On December 29, 2002, Yi Jianlian wore Guangdong Hongyuan's suit for the first time to compete in the CBA. Twenty-one years later, he is here to see his jersey hanging above the stadium.
I am really lucky to have been in the past 20 years, thank you to all my teammates and coaches, all my good brothers, good friends, and all the fans in the field, thank you for supporting me for so many years. Yi Jianlian announced his retirement at the end of August 2023, and his eyes welled up in his eyes when he gave a speech.
The UAE jersey retirement ceremony attracted many basketball stars, including Yao Ming, Sun Yue, Battle, Wang Shipeng, etc., as well as athletes and celebrities such as So Bingtian and Wilber Poon.
After the ceremony, the former "Hongyuan Five Tigers" Yi Jianlian, Du Feng, Chen Jianghua, Wang Shipeng, and Zhu Fangyu suddenly appeared on the court wearing jerseys and presented a 5-minute exhibition game for the fans.
However, before the ceremony began, Guangdong's victory over Guangsha's CBA event caused huge controversy, and the discussion once rose to the 6th place on the Weibo hot search list.
In the first half, Guangsha led 63-51, although the former had the advantage and led by up to 15 points, but the overall situation was "back and forth". It's just that in the third quarter, the referee's multiple judgments were favorable to Guangdong, and the home team played a wave of 18-2 offensive to overtake the score.
Subsequently, Guangsha coach Wang Bo was suspected of being dissatisfied with the penalty, and directly replaced all the main players and foreign aides on the field, and replaced them with young substitutes;In the last quarter, he sat in the coach's seat for the whole time, neither commanding on the sidelines nor making substitutions, allowing the young players of the all-Chinese class to play the whole quarter.
The original good advantage was cut off, Guangsha finally lost to Guangdong 95-106, Wang Bo only left a few sentences in an interview after the game: "I won't comment on the game, today is the retirement ceremony of the United Arab Emirates, I hope his future career is good, more and more smooth, thank you." ”
Because this game was followed by Yi Jianlian's jersey retirement ceremony, the referee was questioned about wanting Guangdong to win and blowing penalties of different scales, ** person "Fu Zhenghao MVP" said on Weibo: "The referees still unify the refereeing scale, this season the referee has stolen the spotlight in many games, don't use controversy to ruin the UAE jersey retirement ceremony tonight." ”
Basketball reporter Jia Lei also bombarded: "At such a grand moment of the retirement of the United Arab Emirates, the much-anticipated game, and the peak showdown that everyone is looking forward to, it is really embarrassing for the entire Chinese basketball to end in such a tigerish way after three and a half quarters." ”
Many fans are also dissatisfied with this game, "This basketball game is simply a naked insult to the audience", "Eye-opening, let you win if you want to win", "Dongguan home whistle ox x, Guangsha all-Chinese class substitute 5 to 8", "To see the CBA is to watch the performance of the referee and coach", "This slap in the face, Yao Ming is still sitting below", "CBA is much darker than the Super League".
In addition, some people think that there is no problem with the referee blowing the penalty, and criticize Wang Bo for "the pattern is too small" and play negatively, and some people said that he is likely to receive a penalty from the CBA league because of this: "Yao Ming's face is ugly, Yi Jianlian has no face, Wang Bo is making a big fuss!."”
The game was supposed to be held on the 30th, and in order to cooperate with the jersey retirement ceremony, Wang Bo also agreed to rush from Xinjiang to Guangdong one day in advance, which shows that he respects this important event broadcast live across the country.
Guangsha was originally considered a championship team, and after the game, Guangsha ranked 5th in the CBA, 2 games behind Guangdong and 4 games behind Xinjiang, the top of the list.