


A wild story has emerged out of China, where two professional basketball teams were thrown out of the playoffs due to alleged match fixing in their first-round series.
Mark Dreyer, a sports reporter in China, reported that the Chinese Basketball Association threw the Shanghai Sharks and Jiangsu Dragons out of the playoffs, after investigating the second and third games in their best-of-three series and deeming the teams were not trying to win.
In the second game, the Sharks were accused by the CBA Disciplinary and Ethics Commission of exhibiting “negative contention” of a 97-90 loss while the Dragons were accused of displaying a “lack of competitive effort” in a 108-104 loss in Game 3.
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Shanghai closed Game 3 on a 10-0 run off five consecutive turnovers, as Dragons coach Li Nan neglected to call timeout.
According to USA Today, the Sharks have former NBA players Michael Beasley, Eric Bledsoe — who missed all the games in question as he was suspended for the series — Jamaal Franklin and Johnny O’Bryant on their roster.
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Former Bulls guard Antonio Blakeney plays for the Dragons..
As a result of the league investigation, both teams were fined $725,000.
Sharks coach Li Chunjiang was banned for five years and Sharks GM Jiang Yusheng was banned for three years, while Nan, the Dragons coachreceived a three-year bam.
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Dragons GM Shin Linjie was also banned for five years, according to Dreyer.
Former Rockets star Yao Ming, the president of the Chinese Basketball Association, called the ordeal “a quite saddening weekend,” according to China Daily.
“We conducted a very prudent investigation to help us make the decision based on precise matters. We believe that everybody feels quite distressed about this,” Ming said.
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“For sports games, the most important thing is reputation, rather than ability. Credit is what everybody, every team, the league, and the association is based on. We need to draw a profound lesson from this and change some things in the future to make what we have paid for valuable.
“That’s all I can say. We need to express our steadfast attitude and grief at this moment.”