2023-07-24 Ecns.cn Editor：Zhao Li

(ECNS) — Chinese Basketball Association announced on Monday morning that Minnesota Timberwolves forward Kyle Anderson has obtained Chinese citizenship.

“Welcome Anderson! He obtained Chinese nationality this morning and met Yao Ming, chairman of the Chinese Basketball Association,” the CBA said on its official Weibo account.

“I’m so happy to announce that I would be representing China in the World Cup. Really proud to wear the team China jersey，” Anderson said on his Weibo account.

Anderson’s great-grandfather was Chinese, according to Sina Sports, adding that in 2018, he visited his ancestral home in south China’s Shenzhen City with his mother to trace his roots and was officially registered in the family genealogy under his Chinese name Li Kai’er (李凯尔).

Anderson is currently 29 years old and plays in the NBA. Throughout his NBA career, he has averaged 7 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 2.6 assists per game. In the just-concluded 2022-23 season, he improved his performance and averaged 9.4 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 4.9 assists per game. He achieved an impressive field goal percentage of 50.9 percent and a three-point shooting percentage of 41 percent.

Chinese Language Text:

https://www.huxiu.com/article/1842044.html

2023-07-25 08:00

中国男篮启动归化：当凯尔·安德森成为李凯尔

正在斯洛文尼亚集训的中国男篮，马上要迎来一位新成员。7月24日上午，中国篮协对外宣布凯尔·安德森（Kyle Anderson）正式入籍，紧接着，他的中文名字“李凯尔”出现在中国男篮五人篮球的人才库中。不出意外的话，这位NBA明尼苏达森林狼队的前锋，将作为国家队阵中唯一的现役NBA球员，出征下个月底开幕的男篮世界杯。

历经数月的反复铺垫、辟谣，李凯尔今天正式入籍。从外界舆论反应来看，并没有说多轰动，只能算个体育圈的大事件。

外界有此反应，一方面是因为入籍手续办理耗时相当长，入籍前各方也都相当低调，不愿意过多透露进展——在此期间有不少真真假假的消息传出，某种程度上也消耗了球迷对于此事的兴奋值。另一方面，在李凯尔入籍前，中国男足已经有过引入归化球员的经历，北京冬奥会上又有谷爱凌等归化运动员出战。在这一系列先例的铺垫下，大家对于运动员归化、入籍这类操作已经比较熟悉，好奇心和期待值相对降低。

无论如何，这样一位能在NBA稳定进入轮换阵容的球员愿意加入，对于亟需在男篮世界杯争取好成绩、获取巴黎奥运会门票的中国男篮，必然是个强力补充。甚至，之所以要归化李凯尔，正是为了争夺这张奥运门票。

一、时势唤英雄

2022年11月16日，中国篮协宣布塞尔维亚人亚历山大·乔尔杰维奇出任中国男篮国家队主教练。知情人向懒熊体育透露，这位带队打进过奥运会、世界杯、欧洲杯多项大赛决赛的著名教头，愿意接手中国队教鞭的一大条件，就是要补充归化球员。

这是个不难理解的要求。2019年，中国男篮在家门口以一种相当难受的方式丢掉奥运会入场券，连续9届出战奥运会的纪录被中断，同时也失去了在高水平舞台展现的机会。无论各方如何归咎失利原因，一个不可否认的事实是，从伦敦到里约经历奥运会十连败，再到进军东京未果，中国男篮已经跌入低谷。

自身实力下滑的同时，世界篮球的格局正在发生变化。越来越多的国际球员在NBA征战，例如本届世界杯与中国队同组的三支球队，均有在NBA打球的队员可供选择。而随着2018年周琦离开火箭队，中国已经长达四年多没有球员能够跻身NBA。与此同时，许多国家甚至未曾停下归化的步伐，伊巴卡之于西班牙、恩比德之于法国，都是篮球强国寄望通过归化继续提升阵容的典型案例。

要在强敌环伺的情况下，纯靠现有阵容实现突围目标，中国男篮面临的比赛难度可想而知。在没有NBA球员带队的情况下，归化就成了最简单粗暴的选择。2022年12月17日，连任中国篮协主席的姚明，在接受新华社采访时透露了管理者对归化的态度，他提到，我们首先要考虑国际篮联的规则，其次要考虑是否符合中国的法律和政策，第三要考虑相关球员是否能给团队带来提升，并表示目前还没有特别合适的对象，“欢迎大家推荐。”

毫无疑问，这是篮协愿意推动归化的公开表态。根据国际篮联规定，如果一名球员在16岁之前没有获得该国国籍，将被视为归化球员，一届赛事中，每个国家队名单里只允许注册一名归化球员。这也意味着，需要即战力的中国男篮能且只能将宝押在一个人身上——这个人最终是李凯尔。

简而言之，乔尔杰维奇应该是想将中国男篮的内外线捏合成更加有机的整体，强调进攻端的流畅性。而在拥有李凯尔这一名足尺寸的锋线球员后，他的策应能力应该会成为中国男篮内外线连接的一个重要支点。当后卫线在国际赛场上因为身高受限而难以出球时，李凯尔在罚球线的策应能力可以作为另一种破局思路，在解放周琦等内线球员的同时，也能为外线球员创造更多进攻机会。

二、似乎是天作之合

实际上，归化李凯尔的声音早在2019年之前便已出现。2012年，尚在UCLA读书的李凯尔曾随队来华参加友谊赛，和清华、北大以及CBA的上海男篮进行过直接交手。作为球队主力，他优秀的发挥引起了球迷的注意，球迷当时还发现，其具有八分之一的中国血统。

值得一提的是，因为祖父辈的离世，李凯尔一家早在上个世纪就和国内亲人失去了联系，但他的母亲苏珊娜非常重视这一远隔重洋的血亲关系。据李凯尔自己在微博的表述，苏珊娜花了五年多时间寻亲。功夫不负有心人，2018年，李凯尔随母亲来到深圳市龙岗区平湖街道新木新村，找到了自己在中国的亲人。这一事件当时就曾引起过媒体关注，但仅仅作为NBA球员寻亲的感人故事来讲述。随着2019年男篮世界杯的失利，归化成为球迷热议的话题，李凯尔的血缘关系和寻亲举动，让他成为舆论场上的热门人选。

当时，归化言论还只是球迷基于输球发泄的一种方式，归化这个举动本身也具有极大争议性，因此像一阵风吹过，没有激起任何波澜。懒熊体育了解到，林书豪多年前原本有被归化意愿，但碍于时机不成熟，中国篮协没有推进这件事，最终不了了之。

不过2019年，除了男篮在世界杯输球，国内体育界还发生了另一件影响深远的事情，那就是男足大面积归化：出生于英国伦敦的前英超球员尼古拉斯·延纳里斯（后更名李可）、出生于挪威罗森博格的侯永永、出生于秘鲁利马市的罗伯特·萧（后更名萧涛涛）等多名血缘归化球员相继加盟中超球队，为国家队吸纳归化球员打开了大门。

尽管归化球员并未给中国男足带来实质上的成绩提升，不过在2022年北京冬奥会上，又有多个项目的归化选手为中国代表团参赛，尤其谷爱凌的强势发挥，一定程度上减少了外界对于归化运动员使用的质疑。

因此，中国男篮在2023年拥有一名归化球员，面对的舆论环境已然不同。这也是姚明可以多次直接回应归化事宜的本质原因，比如2023年4月7日举办的中国篮球媒体日上，他直言归化需要有文化认同、水平越高越好、都不拒绝。而此时，归化李凯尔的事宜似乎已经提上日程，据懒熊体育了解，中国篮协内部早在今年初就开始走内部流程，为此还向体育总局做了详细的可行性汇报，符合姚明上述三个条件的候选球员非常有限，李凯尔几乎可以说就是唯一。

4月26日，《南华早报》记者Mike Chan曾报道，李凯尔可能代表中国队出战FIBA。同时，刚打完季后赛的李凯尔，被盛传正在等待眼部伤势康复，然后会立刻飞到国内备战男篮世界杯。接下来三个月，社交媒体上多次传出已办妥国籍的消息，但每一次都被其经纪团队辟谣，直到这次官宣。

李凯尔因为场上节奏独特、动作缓慢，被球迷戏称为“人类蠕动精华”。经过数月的等待后，“人类蠕动精华”终于“蠕”过太平洋，来到了中国球迷面前。

如今，中国男篮正处于新老交替、亟待证明自己的阶段，对于本土球员来说，与高水平运动员一同训练、对抗，是一种提升自己的途径和机会；对于中国男篮和乔尔杰维奇而言，这是一次不需要花费太多纠结便能提升阵容的操作；而对李凯尔本人而言，加入中国男篮，他能获得的同样有很多。

三、狮子没有大开口

关于归化，运动员的场上表现引人瞩目的同时，场下“待遇”也颇受关注。在足球方面，球员归化费用主要是两处，一是转会费，二是年薪。足球归化的年薪，具体金额有五花八门的说法，从百万到亿不一而足，因此引起过不小争议。

据懒熊体育了解，李凯尔的归化与足球项目颇多不同，一方面，球员团队对于归化的经济待遇要求并不高，最初接洽时提出的金额不过百万美元左右；另一方面，这些费用并不需要由篮协或者国内俱乐部支出，而是由赞助商来承担，NBA球员还可继续从其效力的俱乐部获得薪水（李凯尔和森林狼2年1800万美元的合同还剩一年）。可以做个类比，作为中国足球的首个归化球员，李可从国安拿到的首份三年合同，年薪就是百万美元上下，他今年又续签了一份一年合同。

以耐克为例，2018年，李凯尔曾和耐克签下产品合同。此次归化后，耐克与李凯尔的缘分将持续下去。懒熊体育获悉，李凯尔即将出任耐克的品牌代言人，这也是他入籍后拿下的首个商业代言。2017年，Jordan Brand签下第一个中国球员郭艾伦时，年价就超过百万美元（ESPN当时有报道说年价达300万），当时负责的经纪公司，正是李凯尔如今的经纪公司沃瑟曼。李凯尔此番如果续签耐克，价格也低不了。

而随着李凯尔加入中国男篮，一位有中国血统、在NBA打球、愿意代表中国出战的归化球员，必然会引起更多品牌的注意与争夺。提及中国归化运动员的商业化之路，难免需要跟谷爱凌做比较。从官宣入籍的受关注程度来看，李凯尔并没有优势，但如果能在世界杯上帮助中国男篮取得好成绩，甚至拿到下届奥运会的入场券，体育圈内和圈外的各个品牌代言席卷而来的盛况或许就会再度出现，毕竟，篮球在中国有比滑雪大得多的市场。

Chinese men’s basketball team starts naturalization: when Kyle Anderson becomes Li Kaier

The Chinese men’s basketball team, which is training in Slovenia, is about to welcome a new member. On the morning of July 24, the Chinese Basketball Association announced that Kyle Anderson (Kyle Anderson) was officially naturalized. Immediately afterwards, his Chinese name “Li Kaier” appeared in the talent pool of the Chinese men’s five-a-side basketball team. If there is no accident, the forward of the NBA Minnesota Timberwolves will be the only active NBA player in the national team to compete in the Men’s Basketball World Cup that will open at the end of next month. After several months of laying the groundwork and refusing rumors, Li Kaier was officially naturalized today. Judging from the reaction of outside public opinion, it didn’t say it was too much of a sensation, it could only be regarded as a big event in the sports circle. The outside world has this reaction, on the one hand, because the naturalization process takes a long time, and all parties are quite low-key before the naturalization, and are unwilling to disclose too much progress. During this period, many true and false news came out, which also consumed the fans’ excitement about this matter to a certain extent.

On the other hand, before Li Kaier was naturalized, the Chinese men’s football team had already had the experience of introducing naturalized players, and naturalized players such as Gu Ailing played in the Beijing Winter Olympics. Under the foreshadowing of this series of precedents, everyone is already familiar with operations such as athlete naturalization and naturalization, and their curiosity and expectations are relatively low. In any case, such a player who can stably enter the rotation in the NBA is willing to join. It must be a strong supplement for the Chinese men’s basketball team who urgently need to strive for good results in the Men’s Basketball World Cup and get tickets for the Paris Olympics. Even, the reason for naturalizing Li Kaier is precisely to compete for this Olympic ticket. 1. Times call for heroes On November 16, 2022, the Chinese Basketball Association announced that Serbian Alexander Djordjevic will be the head coach of the Chinese Men’s Basketball Team. An insider revealed to Rilakkuma Sports that the well-known coach who has led the team to the finals of the Olympics, World Cup, and European Cup, is willing to take over the coach of the Chinese team.

One of the conditions is to supplement naturalized players. This is an understandable requirement. In 2019, the Chinese men’s basketball team lost their Olympic tickets at home in a rather uncomfortable way. The record of 9 consecutive Olympic games was interrupted, and at the same time they lost the opportunity to perform on a high-level stage. No matter how the parties blame the cause of the failure, an undeniable fact is that the Chinese men’s basketball team has fallen into a trough after experiencing ten consecutive defeats in the Olympic Games from London to Rio, and then failed to enter Tokyo. While its own strength is declining, the pattern of world basketball is changing. More and more international players are playing in the NBA. For example, the three teams in the same group as the Chinese team in this World Cup all have players who play in the NBA to choose from. With Zhou Qi leaving the Rockets in 2018, China has had no players who have been able to make it to the NBA for more than four years.

At the same time, many countries have not even stopped the pace of naturalization. Ibaka to Spain and Embiid to France are typical cases of basketball powers hoping to continue to improve their lineup through naturalization. In the case of being surrounded by powerful enemies, relying solely on the existing lineup to achieve the goal of breaking through, the difficulty of the game for the Chinese men’s basketball team can be imagined. In the absence of NBA players to lead the team, naturalization has become the simplest and rude choice. On December 17, 2022, Yao Ming, who was re-elected as the chairman of the Chinese Basketball Association, revealed the manager’s attitude towards naturalization in an interview with Xinhua News Agency.

He mentioned that we must first consider the FIBA rules, secondly, whether it complies with Chinese laws and policies, and thirdly, whether the relevant players can bring improvement to the team. There is no doubt that this is a public statement of the Basketball Association’s willingness to promote naturalization. According to FIBA regulations, if a player does not obtain the nationality of the country before the age of 16, he will be regarded as a naturalized player. In a tournament, only one naturalized player is allowed to be registered in each national team list. This also means that the Chinese men’s basketball team that needs immediate combat power can and can only bet on one person-this person is ultimately Li Kaier. In short, Djordjevic should want to knead the internal and external lines of the Chinese men’s basketball team into a more organic whole, emphasizing the fluency of the offensive end.

And with Li Kaier, a full-size striker, his coping ability should become an important fulcrum for the Chinese men’s basketball team to connect the inside and outside. When the back line is difficult to play due to height restrictions in the international arena, Li Kaier’s coping ability at the free throw line can be used as another way to break the game. While liberating Zhou Qi and other inside players, it can also create more offensive opportunities for outside players. 2. It seems like a match made in heaven In fact, the voice of naturalized Li Kell appeared as early as 2019. In 2012, Li Kaier, who was still studying at UCLA, came to China with the team to participate in a friendly match, and played directly against Tsinghua University, Peking University and the Shanghai Men’s Basketball Team of the CBA. As the main force of the team, his excellent performance attracted the attention of fans. The fans also discovered at the time that he had one-eighth of Chinese ancestry. It is worth mentioning that because of the death of his grandparents, Li Kaier’s family lost contact with their relatives in China as early as the last century, but his mother Suzanne attached great importance to this blood relationship separated by oceans.

According to Li Kaier’s own statement on Weibo, Suzanne spent more than five years looking for relatives. Hard work pays off. In 2018, Li Kaier followed his mother to Xinmu New Village, Pinghu Street, Longgang District, Shenzhen, where he found his relatives in China. This incident had attracted media attention at the time, but it was only told as a touching story of NBA players looking for relatives. With the defeat of the 2019 Men’s Basketball World Cup, naturalization has become a hot topic among fans. Li Kaier’s blood relationship and relative search activities make him a popular candidate in the public opinion field. At that time, the naturalization remarks were just a way for fans to vent their losses. The act of naturalization itself was also extremely controversial, so it was like a gust of wind blowing without causing any waves. Rilakkuma Sports learned that Jeremy Lin originally wanted to be naturalized many years ago, but due to the immature timing, the Chinese Basketball Association did not push forward with this matter, and it finally fell through.

However, in 2019, in addition to the men’s basketball team losing in the World Cup, another far-reaching event occurred in the domestic sports world, that is, the large-scale naturalization of men’s football: former Premier League player Nicholas Yennaris (later renamed Li Ke) born in London, England, Hou Yongyong born in Rosenberg, Norway, and Robert Xiao (later renamed Xiao Taotao) born in Lima, Peru. Although naturalized players have not brought substantial performance improvements to the Chinese men’s football team, at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, there will be naturalized players from multiple events participating in the Chinese delegation. In particular, Gu Ailing’s strong performance has reduced the outside world’s doubts about the use of naturalized athletes to a certain extent. Therefore, the Chinese men’s basketball team has a naturalized player in 2023, and the public opinion environment it faces is already different.

This is also the essential reason why Yao Ming can directly respond to naturalization issues many times. For example, at the Chinese Basketball Media Day held on April 7, 2023, he bluntly stated that naturalization requires cultural identity, the higher the level, the better, and he never refused. At this time, the matter of naturalizing Li Kaier seems to have been put on the agenda. According to Lanxiong Sports, the Chinese Basketball Association has started to go through internal procedures as early as the beginning of this year. For this reason, it has made a detailed feasibility report to the General Administration of Sports. The candidates who meet the above three conditions of Yao Ming are very limited, and Li Kaier is almost the only one. On April 26, South China Morning Post reporter Mike Chan reported that Li Kaier may represent the Chinese team in FIBA. At the same time, Li Kaier, who has just finished the playoffs, is rumored to be waiting for his eye injury to recover, and then he will immediately fly to China to prepare for the Men’s Basketball World Cup.

In the next three months, there were many reports on social media that the nationality had been completed, but each time the rumors were refuted by his management team until the official announcement. Because of his unique rhythm and slow movements on the court, Li Kaier was nicknamed “the essence of human creep” by fans. After several months of waiting, the “Essence of Human Creep” finally “crawled” across the Pacific Ocean and came to Chinese fans. Today, the Chinese men’s basketball team is in a stage where the old and the new are in transition and needs to prove themselves. For local players, training and fighting with high-level athletes is a way and opportunity to improve themselves; 3. The lion has no big mouth Regarding naturalization, while the performance of athletes on the field is eye-catching, the “treatment” off the field has also attracted much attention. In football, there are two main expenses for player naturalization, one is the transfer fee, and the other is the annual salary.

There are various opinions about the annual salary of football naturalization, ranging from one million to one hundred million, so it has caused a lot of controversy. According to Lanxiong Sports, Li Kaier’s naturalization is quite different from football projects. On the one hand, the player team does not have high requirements for the economic treatment of naturalization, and the amount proposed in the initial contact is only about one million US dollars; An analogy can be made. As the first naturalized player in Chinese football, Li Ke received his first three-year contract from Guoan with an annual salary of around one million US dollars. He renewed his one-year contract this year. Take Nike as an example. In 2018, Li Kaier signed a product contract with Nike. After this naturalization, the fate between Nike and Li Kaier will continue. Lanxiong Sports learned that Li Kaier will soon be the brand spokesperson of Nike, which is also his first commercial endorsement after naturalization.

In 2017, when Jordan Brand signed the first Chinese player Guo Ailun, the annual price was more than one million US dollars (ESPN reported at the time that the annual price was 3 million). If Li Kaier renews his contract with Nike this time, the price will not be lower. With Li Kaier joining the Chinese men’s basketball team, a naturalized player with Chinese blood, playing in the NBA and willing to represent China will inevitably attract the attention and competition of more brands. When it comes to the commercialization of Chinese naturalized athletes, it is inevitable to compare with Gu Ailing. Judging from the attention paid to the official announcement of naturalization, Li Kaier has no advantage, but if he can help the Chinese men’s basketball team achieve good results in the World Cup, and even get tickets to the next Olympic Games, the grand occasion of endorsement by various brands inside and outside the sports circle may appear again. After all, basketball has a much bigger market in China than skiing.