Zhou Qi - the next big asian thing

[RollingWave]

Would opposing teams really guard him that hard on the perimeters though?

Zhou figure to be a complimentary player on offense anyway, as long as he can make you pay for not guarding him he should be perfectly playable. And if teams need to stick one of their big on him out near the line it's already a win.

As for 4 or 5 probably a 4 or small ball 5 right now though it depends on match ups. If the opposing center isn't a major post up threat why not ? Whatever that puts him in the best position to contest in the paint.

The thing with Yi or Wang ZhiZhi was that they were bad defenders in the nba, which means they better be great offensive players which they were a peg below.

Zhou's tools and games suggest he's a potentially great defender and should at least be a situationally very good defender. That makes his path to being a real nba player much easier to see. Since it doesn't involve him being like a top 30-50 offensive talent in the world.

[RollingWave]

I guess the down side of Zhou Qi, might be someone like Alexis Ajinca , who wasn't very good after drafted but since returning from Europe has been pretty legit. but Zhou certainly shown the ability to step out more than Ajinca.

[RollingWave]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/RollingWave0720/status/741321359465283584[/tweet]

Zhou's contract situation confirmed, staying one more year in China, comes over in 17-18

So if drafted this year ( assuming he doesn't pull out ) he will be a stash player for one season

[RollingWave]

For the talk on Zhou's age

I obviously can't claim to know . but here's 2 picture of him in 2009 (should be 14 turning 15 at the time.)




I would say that if he wasn't already around 7 feet tall there would be no doubt at all he was 14 and under looking at that. that would be one of the most baby faced 16 year olds I've ever seen, let alone 18.

[Rastas]

So if he was 14 or 15 in 2009 , that makes him 22 or 23 now, so not a teenager but a senior - gotcha.

[K_chile22]

So if he was 14 or 15 in 2009 , that makes him 22 or 23 now, so not a teenager but a senior - gotcha.

???


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[babyjax13]

So if he was 14 or 15 in 2009 , that makes him 22 or 23 now, so not a teenager but a senior - gotcha.

No, it makes him anywhere between 20 and 22, meaning that his listed age of 20 is probably believable.

[RollingWave]

Some general thoughts on him a year later . general overview on his cba season

1. His XinJiang team won their first championship ever in convincing fashion, losing just one game in 3 rounds (best of 5/7/7) and sweeping the finals against Guang Dong, ( Yi, Boozer and Donald Sloan ) pretty convincingly (only 1 of the 4 game was really close, and 2 were basically blow outs. ) heck the one game they lost was Bogus too because the clock stopped running suspiciously on the last play and the opposing team hit a buzzer beater against a confused XinJiang team.

2. However, the team's dominance didn't quite translate into personal dominance on Zhou's part, he played basically the same way , his regular season stats actually been declining all 3 years though he's generally been healthier every year so it seems to be a case of him holding back a lot more, but still it also seem to suggest he's not really getting that much better. he did try a lot harder in the playoffs but by the later half a series of injuries limited him a bit . (though he played the final 2 game with a bandaged hand. )

( Side note, but Xinjiang is playing a lot more like a modern NBA team than the rest of the league in general, XinJiang got actual 3&D wings and bigs that can make plays and not just post up and grab rebounds. it's defensive scheme also feels a lot more versatile. part of the reason why it's so dominant. )

3. From the eye test there's some incremental improvement from Zhou I feel, his rebounding numbers remained the same but the way he's doing it feels a lot better. he's actually coming down hard with it a lot more and trying to get positions. instead of just going purely on length. His shooting seem to be getting a bit better too as his 3s volume grew by a lot (he shot just 25 3s in the first 2 years, he took 55 this year and made 20 of them. )

4. His frame hasn't noticeably changed and I obviously never seen him on a scale so I don't know about that aspect. it's unlikely he'll ever be bulky but the question is always does he meet the floor of being able to compete in the NBA.

His game makes a lot of sense in the modern NBA, but can he ratch up to the physical competitive level is the big question mark. he still can easily bust simply by not being able to handle the next level of athleticism but then he could also pan out and be one of those sneaky great RPM guys who doesn't have the greatest PER or anything but the teams almost always do well when he's out there because he can really effect shots and space the floor pretty well . the nice thing about him is that he has shown to have pretty good range for that size and also can put it on the floor a bit. His touch seems to be above average at worst. also another aspect I'm fairly confident in is that he's got some NBA tricks in the bag already, he does quiet a lot of foul baiting BS moves that'll probably annoying a lot of opposing fan base. he likes the rip through moves quite a bit and do those jump into guys in the air stuff a lot.


(vs Carlos Boozer )

We'll see, I'm fairly sure he'll need most of the next year in Rio before we really know what we got. but the Rockets have a pretty good track record of getting those later picks to be pretty useful players (at least for awhile. )

[Barnsey]

Any new impressions of him after seeing him play in summer league?

We know he's long, skilled and fluid. But I've been impressed with his ability to grab rebounds in traffic, that was one of my questions. Doesn't shy away from contact.

Watch on YouTube

[UcanUwill]

Any new impressions of him after seeing him play in summer league?

We know he's long, skilled and fluid. But I've been impressed with his ability to grab rebounds in traffic, that was one of my questions. Doesn't shy away from contact.

Watch on YouTube

Looks like a real player. More aggressive and better rebounder than I anticipated. Strong post play becoming extinct, so his lack of mass should not be deal breaking problem. Might not be a guy who guards Howard or Valanciunas well, but I take my chances with him taking on Benders and Porzingises of this league. Looks good, I was skeptical.

[Joel Embust]

What about his age, I think that's a serious thing to consider when determining his value and what level a prospect he is.

[K_chile22]

What about his age, I think that's a serious thing to consider when determining his value and what level a prospect he is.

As far as I know there isn't any evidence of him being older than he says. The only point against him is "He's from China"

[UcanUwill]

What about his age, I think that's a serious thing to consider when determining his value and what level a prospect he is.

As far as I know there isn't any evidence of him being older than he says. The only point against him is "He's from China"

He looks pretty young to me

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[PaKwAn]

What about his age, I think that's a serious thing to consider when determining his value and what level a prospect he is.

As far as I know there isn't any evidence of him being older than he says. The only point against him is "He's from China"

He looks pretty young to me

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to be fair, most asians look younger than their age.

[RollingWave]

What about his age, I think that's a serious thing to consider when determining his value and what level a prospect he is.

As far as I know there isn't any evidence of him being older than he says. The only point against him is "He's from China"

It's a bit more than that As I've looked into it a bit, he's been noted to be 7 feet since like age 15 and hasn't grown much since which can be suspect, but obviously there's a range of when people start and stop growing and that is still within plausible range.

OTOH, he's also been on radar since at least age 13, and media coverage etc are much better these days. so it's much harder to get away with this , the government's actually been cracking down a lot harder on this issue as well. and the risk / incentives are changing in general.

My conclusion is that he might have shifted his birthday a bit (though that might be for entering school 1 year earlier / later purpose . ) but it's probably not a Yi Jian Lian case .


As for his SL, it's a weird mix bag, on the one hand the Rockets in 5 games are -12 overall ( they went 2-3 but all 5 games were reasonably close .) ... but Zhou was a wooping +56 with a positive ( and either 1 or 2 on the team ) every game. OTOH outside of game 1 he shot like garbage, and at least the last game I didn't like a lot of what I saw from him defensively in terms of positioning and decisions. either

But he's clearly super disruptive as a shot blocker and makes passing harder. and did move pretty quickly, there was a few play where they left him on an island against guards and he did well. there's also a very clear attempt for the team to ask him to try and just take almost all his shots from the top of the arc until game 4/5, in game 5 they ran like 3 strait post up for him for some reason. and they almost always played him with a center type guy also.

So there's a lot of things going on there. it's hard to really be able to properly split out what is what at this point. I think the overall positive is that he obviously didn't look totally physically overwhelmed (though he did a little in the last game.) so that's one thing you feel better about, OTOH his questionable rebounding habits seem to be coming back as he's quite content to not come down hard with the ball and like to bat it around instinctively it seems. he had a lot of craft finishing going to the rim in China and showed almost none of it here. and obviously overall stats is too low as his tendency to be cool with just hanging around and not being assertive seems even worse in a setting where a lot of guys are fighting for a contract.

So there's a lot of mixed message but I guess overall it's probably more positive than negative? at least the Houston coaches GM seem to speak of him very highly and often. it's not hard to see the potential for it to work out spectacularly but obviously how it could totally not work out is also rather evident.

[Grits n Gravy]

Any new impressions of him after seeing him play in summer league?

We know he's long, skilled and fluid. But I've been impressed with his ability to grab rebounds in traffic, that was one of my questions. Doesn't shy away from contact.

Watch on YouTube

Never seen him play, just that highlight you posted but dam he's got some incredibly quick feet and very mobile. If he could pack on 30-50 pounds and not lose too much of that quickness and mobility he would be legit though I'm not sure how likely either of those are.