J.R. Smith is finally in the building! The Tatted One and the Zhejiang Golden Bulls will take on the Shanghai Sharks tonight at Yuanshen Stadium, in one of the last games of the Sharks' regular season. more ›

The Shanghai Sharks won yet again at home but had to do it the hard way after a disastrous third quarter undid the excellent work of a swashbuckling first half. The scoreline will tell you that the Sharks beat Qingdao Eagles 69-63 but the home side will be kicking themselves after letting the game get so close in the first place. more ›

The Sharks finally won a game on the road despite the continued absences of Liu Wei and Tseng Wen-ting. Ryan Forehan-Kelly, who was also expected to be out injured, was passed fit and Shanghai needed him to steady the nerves of his younger team mates and combine with a swaggering Mike Harris to lead the Sharks to victory against a suitably villainous Bayi Rockets team by a score of 94-85. more ›

The Yuanshen crowd breathed a collective sigh of relief after the Sharks held on to overcome a feisty Shanxi Dragons team to move their impressive home record up to 4-1. The score was 92-90 but it shouldn't have got that close. The Sharks almost threw away a victory but have Mike Harris and Meng Lingyuan to thank for getting them over the finishing line. more ›

Shanghai are now 0-6 on the road despite a battling, hardworking performance that saw the obligatory top drawer performances from Ryan Forehan-Kelly and Mike Harris. Ultimately the Sharks couldn’t cope with the strength and guile of former Shark, Zaid Abbas. The Jordanian didn’t put up a huge score, but galvanised his team with an eye-catching performance that kept a passionate home crowd on their feet. more ›

Shanghai stayed in Guangdong province and Dongguan pulled the same trick as their neighbors by beating the Sharks with a couple of good individual performances and a warehouse full of clinical finishing. The margin was 107-99 and the Sharks once again found themselves caught up in their second shoot-out in three games. more ›

The Sharks were hard-working and determined, but ultimately couldn’t overcome their guests’ inspired offence in a match where eleven players scoring totals made it into double digits. more ›

Once more the Sharks hustled, fought and played good defense, and once more Shanghai finds themselves on the losing side. The Sharks have lost their third straight road game to begin the season at 0-3, after falling 102-98 against the Foshan Longlions. more ›

Another road game, another hard defeat, another ‘what-might-have-been?’ result, and another missed opportunity for some much-needed positivity. The Sharks fell to their second successive defeat in a game which had flashes of hope, before being ultimately quashed in the cruelest of fashions. more ›

An occasionally vibrant Shanghai side lost at the death in a game that Sharks players will look back ruefully on as a missed opportunity to start their season in winning fashion. more ›

You mean...this is goodbye? Bob Donewald Jr is leaving his head coaching position with the CBA's Shanghai Sharks, having accepted a better contract from the recent CBA Championship Finalists, the Xinjiang Flying Tigers. Also currently head coach of the Chinese Men's National Basketball Team, Donewald's departure was met with complacent acceptance, rather than any bitterness or anger. more ›

Guess who was in town today? Yao Ming, according to CNN Go. The 2.26 meter son of Shanghai was here to prepare for his much-publicized charity tour with the Yao Ming Foundation and also to check up on his team, the Shanghai Sharks before the upcoming Chinese Basketball Association. Best Yao quote from his trip here: "I can change my daughter's diaper with just my toe, can you believe that? When baby cries at night, I just kick my wife and everything is miraculously done." more ›

Earlier this month, we told you about a WildAid public service announcement starring Chinese basketballer Yao Ming that discouraged people from eating shark's fin soup. We weren't able to find a Youku video for you then but here it finally is (English version on Youtube here). Yao has been an ambassador against the shark's fin trade for a few years now since his public pledge in 2006 never to eat shark's fin soup again. In 2007, a small ruckus erupted prior to Yao's wedding dinner in Shanghai when the media reported that shark's fin would be served as the opening dish of the lavish 12-course dinner -- those rumours turned out to be untrue. Yao Ming's role as the anti-shark's fin guy makes great marketing sense because once upon a time, he used to play for a basketball club called the Shanghai Sharks. Last year he purchased his former club and saved it from financial ruin. Now he's doing all he can to ensure his club isn't named after an extinct animal.
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• Speak2Me, an online English language learning community, has made an agreement to create a language training program for the 80,000 plus Expo volunteers and guides that will be working this May. It would be scary interesting to have loads of volunteers running around speaking like the Speak2Me virtual teacher. [CNNMoney]
• All Roads Lead to China has some ideas about making the People's Square Station less of a hell for commuters. For instance: more maps. [All Roads Lead to China]
• Shanghai's Disneyland has been downsized from 400 hectares to 116 hectares, the smallest Disney park in the world. We've all been a bit schizophrenic reporting Shanghai's Disneyland: plans seem to change faster than you can say mǐ lǎo shǔ (yup, that's Mickey Mouse in Chinese). [ChinaDaily]
• Need something to read? Next time before you plough down to Garden Books check out Urbanatomy's web exclusives featuring authors. The feature is a great insight into the minds of contemporary writers writing about Chinese culture. Their latest is features Nicole Mones, author of The Last Chinese Chef. [Urbanatomy]

Oh no, it looks like Yao Ming hasn’t bought the Shanghai Sharks after all. Instead, all they’ve signed on to be is an “entrusted investor” for the next five years. Despite agreeing in July to transfer stakes in the Sharks to Yao, it seems that those stakes will now be sold on the open market. But those who worry that this just means even more disappointments for Sharks fans needn’t: Yao has said that even though he’s not the owner, he’ll be doing everything he can to improve the team’s performance. more ›

We guess even if Yao Ming's foot takes him away from playing the game, it doesn't mean he's out of basketball. The superstar athlete is becoming the new boss of his former team, the Shanghai Sharks. In what China Daily calls the highest profile deal in Chinese Basketball Association history, Yao Ming signed an agreement with all three of Shanghai Shark's current shareholders to buy their stakes. The 2.26m center said he is willing to “pay back his home team and Shanghai where he started his basketball career” and will “help Shanghai return to glory.” The last CBA championship the Sharks won was in the 2001-02 season with the help of Yao. Since he's left, the team's fallen into dire straits, placing second last most recently. more ›

While we were wondering why neither ESPN Asia nor Star Sports on our satellite system was showing the Dallas Mavericks-Golden State Warriors game this morning, we noticed a clip on ESPN video that talked about NBA commissioner David Stern expressing interest in setting up a joint venture hoops league in China. We stopped going to Shanghai Sharks games a few years ago because the team didn't seem to care too much about its fans, so we think this has to be good news: more ›

The Shanghai Sharks are not just a bad basketball team -- they haven't made the CBA playoffs since winning the league title in 2002 (Yao Ming's final season) -- they are cheaters, as well. Statisticians at Shanghai's final home game of the season credited Sharks guard Liu Wei with 16 assists, enough to assure Liu the regular season league assists crown. One problem: Liu only has seven assists in that game. more ›

China may have found the oft-discussed "next Yao Ming." Of course he is only 13 years old, so we'll have to wait a while to find out. But according to the Wenhui Daily, Tian Yuchen is already 205 cm tall -- that's almost 6-foot-9. When Yao Ming was 13, he was "only" 197 cm. Tian is from Changchun in Jilin province and he's already a member of the Shanghai Sharks youth team, the same place Yao got his start. The paper said Tian is considered the "secret weapon" for the Sharks' much-needed CBA turnaround (they are currently 3-5 and dead last in the CBA South Division standings). Tian is actually being trained to play as a guard and he's already signed an endorsement deal with athletic apparel brand Li Ning. more ›

Watch out! The Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) is moving toward "real professionaliztion." Their grand scheme, called the "Polarstar Project," launches this Sunday with the start of the 2005-2006 season, the league's tenth year of existence. more ›

Shanghai's model worker Yao Ming has decided not to represent his hometown in the Chinese National Games, which begin this October in Jiangsu Province. more ›