Every year in the playoffs, there are players who overperform and underperform. The focus is often on the players who don’t do so well: we’ve seen many fans on social media blast players who have bad performances.
While the CBA is a great league with many fans, there has been a recent trend of NBA fans associating players who underperform in the playoffs with the Chinese league, implying that they can only play well outside of the NBA. Recently, the Instagram page hoodiemelo posted their version of the “new lineup” for the Shanghai Sharks, featuring players like Kyle Kuzma and Joe Harris who didn’t have the best playoffs this year. The lineup was reposted by Hoops Nation, and fans reacted to the joke.
While a lot of fans made jokes at the expense of the players who underperformed, there were others who defended certain players’ performances, such as Rudy Gobert. It does need to be said that while some of these players didn’t necessarily play their best in the playoffs, they are still capable basketball players. Hopefully, the players in the lineup are able to bounce back, and come back stronger next season.
