Former NBA players Dwight Howard, DeMarcus Cousins and Quinn Cook are to play together for the Taiwan Mustangs at The Asian Tournament, a newly formed league, starting next month.
Howard, who is now part owner of the Mustangs after playing with the Taoyuan Leopards in the T1 League during the 2022-2023 season, said during a videoconference on Wednesday that he would return to the court in Taiwan with the Mustangs, and his former teammates Cook and Cousins would join him.
The eight-time NBA All-Star had previously said on social media that he has become one of many shareholders in the new league, and a player and part owner of the Mustangs.
Photo: CNA
He said that he would be recruiting other NBA stars to play in Taiwan.
He said in the post that Cook would join him at the Mustangs and on Wednesday he confirmed that Cousins, who led the Taiwan Beer Leopards to the 2023-2024 T1 League championship, would also be part of the team.
Howard and Cook were part of the 2019-2020 Los Angeles Lakers championship squad, and Cousins also signed to play on the team, but his season was derailed after he tore his left anterior cruciate ligament in an off-season pickup game in August 2019.
The Asian Tournament follows the Asian Basketball League (ABL) as the latest attempt to create a Pan-Asian basketball league.
The ABL was launched in 2009, but it did not survive the travel restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Taipei round of games for The Asian Tournament are to be held from July 26 to Aug. 1 at the Taipei Heping Basketball Gymnasium, with tickets to go on sale at noon tomorrow.
An “outstanding” 17-year-old Chinese badminton player died of cardiac arrest after collapsing on court during a tournament in Indonesia, officials said yesterday. Zhang Zhijie was playing a match late Sunday against Japan’s Kazuma Kawano at the Badminton Asia Junior Championships in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The score was 11-11 in the first game when Zhang fell to the floor between points. The teenager received treatment at the venue and was rushed to hospital in an ambulance, but passed away later that night after repeated efforts to resuscitate him failed. “Medical conclusions ... indicated that the victim experienced sudden cardiac arrest,” Broto Happy, spokesman for
Taiwan will have two pairs vying for the women’s doubles at the Olympic Games’ tennis event in Paris as Chan Hao-ching (詹皓晴) and her older sister Latisha Chan (詹詠然) officially clinched their third straight Olympic berth, the Chinese Taipei Tennis Association said Thursday. According to the association, the International Tennis Federation confirmed Wednesday evening the Chan sisters’ qualification for the event, meaning they will join the duo of Hsieh Su-wei (謝淑薇) and Tsao Chia-yi (曹家宜) to compete in the quadrennial sports jamboree. There are 16 entries in each doubles event. Hsieh, ranked No. 2 in the world on the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA)
Taiwan’s men’s national basketball team is set to upgrade its depth in the paint after signing Brandon Gilbeck of the P.League+’s Formosa Dreamers to a naturalized player’s contract. The 27-year-old big man from the US landed in Taoyuan early on Monday, where he was welcomed by Chinese Taipei Basketball Association deputy secretary-general Chang Cheng-chung. The two signed the deal, which still has to be approved by the Sports Administration and the Ministry of the Interior. Chang said he is confident that “the proceedings would go smoothly.” If approved, Gilbeck would become the third naturalized basketball player in Taiwan, following the New Taipei Kings’ Quincy
ONE GAME LEFT: ‘We 100 percent believe that this is the team,’ Kagiso Rabada said when asked if this team could end South Africa’s long World Cup drought A long, tortuous World Cup title drought is closer than ever to ending for South Africa after a nine-wicket win over first-time semi-finalist Afghanistan at the global T20 World Cup cricket tournament on Wednesday. Marco Jansen and Kagiso Rabada set the foundations for the lopsided victory with destructive opening bursts of pace bowling to have Afghanistan reeling at 20-4 in the fourth over, and eventually all out for a paltry 56. The South Africans lost just one wicket in pursuit of its first semi-final win at a global men’s limited-overs tournament, with Reeza Hendricks hitting a six and a four on consecutive