Rafer Alston not making any new Chinese friends so far

Rafer Alston was supposed to be in southern costal China today.

Zhejiang Guangsha, the team Skip was planning to work out for, bought him a plane ticket scheduled to leave from New York yesterday at the ungodly hour of 4 am, scheduled to arrive in Shanghai at the even more ungodly hour of 3am today.  With another flight to the province’s capital, Hangzhou, management figured a full day was necessary to show Skip around town, get him familiar with the team, make their pitch and have him signed as quickly as possible.

One major problem — Alston never got on the plane, so says the Qianjing Evening News.  According to the article, Zhejiang called him at three in the morning to confirm that he was getting on board the flight.  Instead, they got his agent who informed him that Alston wasn’t.

Zhejiang’s GM, Ye Xiangyu is bu man, “not satisfied” with being stood up two times in seven hours: ”Throughout, we haven’t had a conversation with Alston himself, it’s always been with his agent. Regardless, Alston is an adult and he should have his own ability to make judgement. Our import player who played for here before, Jelani McCoy, voluntarily talked with Alston and said that we can relax.”

“We can wait and see, but not for too long.  If Alston doesn’t come again, we’re going to have to change up our plan and find another import immediately.”
T
he team who Alston has reportedly been in contact with for the last three weeks, Qingdao Double Star, is upset that he’s going to visit and work out with another rival team.  A newspaper in Qingdao is quoting the team’s GM, Sheng Xishun, as saying “If everything on the internet right now is true and Alston really is going to Zhejiang first to work out, then we’re not his first choice.  There’s no way we can confirm this piece of news either, but if its true, there’s no way we’d want him.  That’s extremely disrespectful to our club.”
Tough to know what’s really going on at this point.  If Zhejiang did in fact buy Alston a ticket and there was an agreement in place as to when he was landing in Shanghai, then they have a legitimate gripe.  Qingdao, not so much. I’m struggling to understand how a team can complain about being second choice when they themselves have publicly stated that Alston is their second choice behind Von Wafer.