While Moscow was sleeping at night our team had one of the longest trips in the history.
The China Tour is not an easiest of travels of the year. But economical and political importance of the visit to the most populated country in the world is so high that you can allow yourself to suffer shortly.
To conclude the trip “from door to door” the Army Men needed to spend around 18 hours. The flight from Moscow to Beijing was delayed so the team had to hurry to board the flight to Chengdu. Though in the end several bags were missing; they were in the hotel before the departure to the practice.
The team had a meal, short rest and invitational event in the afternoon. Besides the necessary speeches (Andrey Vatutin also said some words) the national opera performers – and it was truly fascinating.
The practice was good as well. It should be mentioned that only two players were left in Moscow to continue post-injury rehab – Joel Freeland and Pavel Korobkov. Kyle Hines took part in non-contact tactical drills.
“It was a long trip that lasted 18 hours”, CSKA head coach Dimitris Itoudis sais. “We tried it to be comfortable, most of the players were in business class. And the team responded, we had a good practice though we can expect it to be low-intensity after a trip and recent Gomelsky Cup. It is important that Kyle starts to participate in 5-on-0 process, so I think and I hope that for the second game we will have him dressed on the bench. We want to represent European basketball and CSKA as a champion over here. We proud to play in front of Chinese audience. Besides the fans that will come on the arena they say 15 millions will be watching it on TV. This games will also be important as the last two preseason tests before the official season starts.”
Both Chinese teams that will oppose the Army Men don’t have many star players. The first of the opponents, Sichuan Blue Whales, the country champion, has no foreigners on the roster. The most famous player here is the National Team’s veteran Liu Wei. The CBA semifinalist Guandong Tigers has a real legend – former Utah Jazz and Chicago Bulls power forward Carlos Boozer and NBA veteran Donald Sloan.
