A pair of former NBA players are returning to China for the 2019/20 season, according to Dario Skerletic of Sportando, who writes that Shabazz Muhammad has signed with Shenzen and Zhou Qi has rejoined Xinjiang.
Muhammad, the 14th overall pick in the 2013 draft, spent five seasons in the NBA with the Timberwolves and Bucks. However, after being waived by Milwaukee last October, he opted to continue his career in China, joining the Shanxi Brave Dragons for the 2018/19 season.
The 26-year-old averaged 29.8 PPG and 11.2 RPG in 41 games for Shanxi, and will now continue playing in the Chinese Basketball Association, albeit with a new team.
As for Zhou, the Chinese big man was the 43rd overall pick in the 2016 draft, but remained with the Xinjiang Flying Tigers for one more year before joining the Rockets for the 2017/18 season.
Zhou appeared in 18 games for Houston in his rookie year, then played in just one game in 2018/19. The 23-year-old got a longer look in the G League during his time under contract with the Rockets, averaging 11.2 PPG and 7.0 RPG in 31 total games for the Rio Grande Valley Vipers. He was released by the club last December and will now resume his career with his old team in Xinjiang.
Shabazz Muhammad, the 14th overall pick in the 2013 draft marks yet another in a lengthy series of draft bust selections by the (now) Minnesota Timberrockets, who except for KG and KAT have done nothing but waste their draft choices for their ENTIRE existence.
ALSO REFER TO:
Justin Patton
AND WHO CAN EVER FORGET
Jhonny Flynn (as opposed to Stephan Curry)
You left out Andrew Wiggins.
Wiggins wasn’t a Minnesota draft pick, he was a Cleveland draft pick. PLUS he is not a bust. He is a mild disappointment at worst.
I forgot he was drafted by Cleveland, but he isn’t just a mild disappointment for the T-Wolves. They would love to be rid of him if he didn’t have one of the hardest to trade contracts in the NBA after that of Chris Paul which OKC is stuck with.
I’d say more than a mild disappointment since they got fooled into paying him a max deal as opposed to just a rookie deal for the other busts
Shabazz Muhammad is the #1 reason in my mind why, for the protection of the NBA, high schoolers shouldn’t go directly into the league. He was almost the unanimous #1 projected player coming out of the 2012 HS class. I think it was 6 out of 7 seven that projected him #1 and the other had him #2 behind Nerlens Noel. But those projections turned out to be meaningless and just a product of him playing against inferior competition.
Once he got into UCLA, he couldn’t stack up against the best college players. He could barely do much against the average college players.
Sure sometimes the HS rankings are proven correct, but sometimes they aren’t. NBA teams should have knowledge of these players against the best of their age group before they have to invest millions of dollars into them.
No team is forced to draft a high school or unproven prospect. If they don’t want to, they don’t have to.
And who went #1 instead? Anthony Bennett. Shabazz averaged 13.5 per game in year 2. Bennett never averaged more than 5.2. Muhammad could get buckets in the league so your whole narrative is false. His style of play became obsolete in the modern nba because he’s a post up guard who doesn’t shoot 3s. But the man got buckets and still would if given the chance.
Funny how Wiggs is a bust at a rate of almost 20PPG… One must wonder about the 96% of players that are below his average… are all of them busts too? Funny, right?