Xu Yong (; born March 30, 1989) is a former Chinese professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

player born in

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

, China. He last played for the Shanghai Dongfang Sharks of the

Chinese Basketball Association The Chinese Basketball Association (), often abbreviated as the CBA, is the first-tier professional men's basketball league in China. The league is commonly known by fans as the CBA, and this acronym is even used in Chinese on a regular basis ...

. Xu Yong was often considered as one of China's major basketball talents, third only to

Yao Ming Yao Ming (; born September 12, 1980) is a Chinese basketball executive and former professional player. He played for the Shanghai Sharks of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) and the Houston Rockets of the National Basketball Associat ...

and

Yi Jianlian Yi Jianlian ( ; born October 27, 1987) is a Chinese professional basketball player for the Guangdong Southern Tigers of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA). He has also played in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the Milwauk ...

. After several dominating performances in the

. Xu had to end his basketball career at age 19 after being diagnosed with

osteosarcoma An osteosarcoma (OS) or osteogenic sarcoma (OGS) (or simply bone cancer) is a cancerous tumor in a bone. Specifically, it is an aggressive malignant neoplasm that arises from primitive transformed cells of mesenchymal origin (and thus a sarcoma) a ...

Career overview

Xu Yong came out of the youth program of

's Shanghai Dongfang Sharks. He caught the attention of many experts through his MVP award at the Adidas Asia Camp in 2005. Later, he played for The Bush School in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

. At the

2007 FIBA Under-19 World Championship The 2007 FIBA Under-19 World Championship (Serbian: Светско првенство до 19 година ФИБА до 19 година) was the 8th edition of the FIBA U19 World Championship. It was held in Novi Sad, Serbia from 12 to 22 July 2 ...

, he averaged 15.8 points, 3.8 rebounds and 2.1 assists on an underperforming Chinese team. In the

, he averaged 18.2 points, 6.3 rebounds and 3.4 assists throughout the regular season with tremendous improvements towards the end of the season. Many experts saw him as China´s next major

NBA The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...

prospect.
NBADraft.net, accessed 8 April 2011. Accordingly, the diagnosis of

and subsequent end of his basketball career came to the dismay of Chinese basketball fans.

References

1989 births Living people Basketball players from Shanghai Chinese men's basketball players Shanghai Sharks players Small forwards {{PRChina-basketball-bio-stub