Russian basketball player Alexey Shved will continue his career in China

One of the strongest players in the history of Russian basketball, Alexey Shved, will continue his career in China. On Tuesday it became known that he had signed a contract with the Shanxi Lungs club. Let us remind you that at the end of last season, Shved left CSKA. He had offers from Euroleague teams, but the 34-year-old basketball player preferred the Chinese option.

One of the strongest Russian basketball players in history, Alexey Shved, will continue his career in China. He signed a contract with the Shanxi Lungs club (a modest team that rarely even gets into the top 10 of the Chinese championship) from the city of Taiyuan. “Now we can officially say that Alexey has become a Shanxi Lungs player. In the coming days he will receive a visa and fly to China to join new partners,” said “Sport Express” basketball player’s agent Obrad Fimich. – I can say that we had two specific offers from Euroleague clubs, but the more interesting option was with China. After the NBA and Euroleague, Alexey discovers a new championship, where many top stars perform. He is eager to bring his best game and help Shanxi Lungs achieve high goals.”

Over almost 20 years of his professional career, Shved managed to play in many teams. From 2005 to 2012, he played for CSKA, where he earned a reputation as the strongest Russian player of his generation.

With the army team, the Swede won the Russian Championship four times and the Euroleague once. From 2012 to 2015, Shved played in the National Basketball Association (NBA), where he played for Minnesota, Philadelphia Timberwolves, Houston Rockets and New York Knicks, after which he returned to Russia, where he signed a contract with ” Khimki”. In 2021, after the virtual bankruptcy of the Moscow region team, he moved to CSKA. In addition to club trophies, the Swede has won bronze at the 2012 Games and third place at the 2011 European Championship.

Shved’s departure from CSKA was not caused by the fact that the coaching staff had complaints against the veteran. On the contrary, it was around him and the Serbian center Nikola Milutinov that the army team built the game. But CSKA President Andrei Vatutin did not hide the fact that in the new conditions (Russian clubs are excluded from participating in European cups and now receive significantly less from sponsors and owners than before) the club simply cannot afford a player of this level, and therefore negotiations are underway to extend the agreement ( the previous one expired at the end of the 2022/23 season) did not even begin.

In the off-season, the most likely continuation of Shved’s career was a move to one of the clubs playing in the Euroleague.

Olympiacos showed interest in the defender, and the basketball player himself announced his readiness to sign a contract with Red Star on social networks. However, in the end the Chinese version worked. Apparently, due to its greater financial attractiveness.

After returning from the NBA, Alexey Shved was consistently among the highest paid basketball players in Europe. His salary over the years fluctuated in the range of €2.5–3.5 million. He probably wanted to stay at a comparable level. But, for example, the entire budget of Red Star is about €9 million, Olympiacos is about €15 million. In such conditions, it is difficult to satisfy the demands of an expensive player. Shanxi Lungs seems to have succeeded.

Don’t think that there is some crazy money floating around in Chinese basketball. There was a time, around the beginning of the 2000s, when players such as Tracy McGrady (a multiple NBA All-Star) came to the Chinese league specifically to earn money, even at the end of their careers. But then it turned out that handing out money to foreigners did not help raise the level of Chinese basketball, so the league began to impose restrictions on salaries and limit the participation of foreign players. And this caused an outflow of foreigners. Well, after the most severe restrictions were introduced in China during the pandemic, there were almost none of them left in the league. Now, however, they are gradually returning.

The latest version of the limit on foreign players (from 2021) provides that only four foreigners can be hired, and two of them can be released for the game. The league also has a salary cap. The total salary of all the club’s foreign players cannot exceed $5 million. Chinese players have their own restrictions – their total salary in the club cannot be less than $2.8 million and more than $6.2 million. In addition to the Swede, Shanxi Lungs has two more foreigners – Isaiah Taylor (former point guard for the Atlanta Hawks and Anadolu Efes) and Justin Patton (former center for the Oklahoma City Thunder and Philadelphia 76ers). Apparently, the option of dividing the legionnaire’s pie suited them all.

Alexander Petrov