NBA-inspired upgrades will be introduced in upcoming season

The Chinese Basketball Association will continue to make NBA-inspired refinements in its quest to evolve into a first-rate pro league in the upcoming expanded season.

With a worldwide fanbase welcoming this week's tip-off of the NBA in North America, the 20-club CBA is gearing up to serve Chinese fans their own hoops feast.

The regular season, which opens on Sunday with defending champion Liaoning hosting Shandong, for the first time features a four-group format, with teams playing each of four group rivals four times home and away while facing cross-group opponents twice a season.

Based on the six-division NBA model, under the new format the CBA regular season will run through mid-March over the course of 46 rounds. The top 12 teams－two more than last year－qualify for the playoffs, with seeds 5-12 competing in preliminary best-of-three series for quarterfinal berths to face seeds 1-4.

Based on a three-games-per-week schedule, the season is expected to wrap up in May after the best-of-seven championship final－one month longer than last year.

The upgrades are part of wide-ranging reforms to improve the league's appeal to fans, media and sponsors on a path to more professionalism.

The reforms were initiated by eight-time NBA All-Star and Hall of Famer Yao Ming after he was elected CBA chairman in February 2017.

"Making the regular season longer and putting more seeds into the postseason will provide greater exposure and longer TV time," Yao said at Thursday's season launch event in Beijing.

"Step by step, we are aspiring to operate as an enterprise model in a market-oriented environment, with less administrative restriction than in the past."

Since Yao's election, the CBA has been run by an independent league company encompassing all 20 club stakeholders instead of being controlled by government officials promoted from within the country's central sports administration. It's based on the NBA's board of governors.

The company now boasts a professional executive team led by Yao to manage everything from governance to development strategies and commercial operations.

Adam Silver, commissioner of the NBA, lauded Yao's efforts during the recent NBA China Games trip in Shanghai.

"Yao is so focused on taking the CBA to the next level," Silver said. "This is something on which we've shared information and he's told me he learned a lot through his experiences as a player.

"We are an open book in terms of sharing our best practices. Given how competitive he is, I give Yao an A-plus for the job he's doing."

Other major changes for the new season include permission for teams to trade draft picks, cutting the number of teams allowed an extra Asian foreigner from four to two and the introduction of awards for best defender and greatest improvement.

In player development and management, the CBA is also learning from the NBA to run its own Chinese Basketball Development League simultaneously with the main league and to standardize contracts into five categories with specific length and salary amounts for rookies, franchise players and veterans.

Fang Shuo, an All-Star guard for the three-time league champion Beijing Ducks, said he's impressed by the overhaul.

"It shows the league has made some real changes toward professionalism. Each step the league has made is good for growing the market and enhancing its profile," said Fang, who also plays for the national team.

The CBA attracted 1.96 million on-site spectators last season on Yao's watch and inked partnerships with digital broadcasters Migu Co Ltd of China Mobile and e-commerce giant Alibaba's Youku－both of which will provide live streaming and on-demand videos of the league through 2020.

The quality of the CBA has made it an irreplaceable asset in the sports entertainment sector, said Liu Xin, Migu's general manager.

"In teaming up with the CBA, the best pro basketball platform in China, we offer fans immersive viewing experiences. In the future, we will help push the expansion of basketball to create a brand new sports ecology."