Asean Basketball League: Hong Kong Eastern eye more success in 2023 as they plan to join Chinese competition
- City’s only professional team hope to join Chinese Basketball Association by 2024 and use Kai Tak Sports Park as their home court
- To prove their readiness, Eastern are targeting a strong showing in the ABL – which they won at their first attempt in 2017 – when it returns in January
The club are understood to have been in contact with mainland Chinese authorities on several occasions to seek the necessary approvals. Sources with knowledge of the developments confirmed to the Post that progress had been made on all fronts.
Although a concrete time frame has yet to be agreed on for Eastern to start playing in the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA), the scheduled 2024 completion of the Kai Tak park, which could stage their matches, is viewed as essential to the plan.
The club want to use the park’s 10,000-capacity Indoor Sports Centre as their home court in the CBA. They currently use Queen Elizabeth Stadium (3,500 capacity) or Southern Stadium (2,000).
“Our hopes for developments are limitless,” Yau said. “The ABL is the best in Southeast Asia, so to be part of China’s premier division had long been our vision, and we had been doing a lot of preparation to realise our dream.
“We aim to do well in the upcoming ABL season, to prove the team [are competitive and] fulfil the requirements to join the CBA.”
Previously known as Hong Kong Eastern Long Lions, the team turned professional in 2016. They competed in the ABL in their first pro season and triumphed in the finals with a 3-1 win over Singapore Slingers in a best-of-five series.
The team dropped “Long Lions” from their name thereafter and finished as semi-finalists in the next two seasons, while also being crowned Hong Kong A1 Division champions in 2018. The ABL was cancelled for three seasons from 2019-20 onwards, but is set to return in January.
“Our experience from the ABL seasons was the backbone of our greater ambition with the CBA,” team leader Wilson Choi Fong-yue said.
“During our ABL championship-winning season, eight of our 13 home games were full houses, and tickets for the home play-off games were sold out in five minutes.”
Choi added that those numbers “proved basketball’s popularity in the city”.
Eastern set aside HK$10 million to become first professional basketball team in Hong Kong
The 2023 ABL season will adopt a new format, being held in four blocks of fixtures in hubs across the region.
The opening leg will be played in Singapore from January 2 to 8, then games will continue in Indonesia (January 12-18), Malaysia (February 3-8) and Vietnam (February 12-17).
After that, each team will have played their seven opponents twice. The top four at the end of the regular season will advance to the semi-finals, with the host country of the finals yet to be decided.