Rafer Alston signs with Guangsha, debut likely on Wednesday
NetEase Sports is reporting that Guangsha has officially signed Rafer Alston to a deal after he completed a five day training session with the team in China, and is likely to make his debut on Wednesday against Jiangsu. Alston will replace guard Tre Kelley on the team’s roster. In 13 games, Kelly averaged 23.6 points, 5.0 rebounds and 4.0 assists.
InsideHoops.com first reported Alston’s deal with Guangsha last Wednesday after talking with the player’s agent, Eddie Lau.
Apparently learning from Beijing and Jiangsu’s respective failed experiments with Francis and Davis, Guangsha brought Alston into the country without an official contract, deciding instead to wait until he had worked out in front of the team for five days. Alston, who spent 11 years in the NBA with seven different teams, has been in China since 21st and has been practicing with the team for the last four days.
Though Alston hasn’t played professional basketball since March of last year when the Miami Heat sent him home for making himself “unavailable to the team,” head coach Wang Fei sounded sure that Alston would be able to step right in and help the team in its playoff push. After both sides agreed on the five day tryout, Wang decided two practices were enough for him to make his decision. “He’s already participated in two practices, one time in DongGuan and one time in a pre-game practice. It hasn’t been too long, all together about an hour and a half.”
“His jumping, running and shooting are all fine, and his physical condition looks to be OK…. Even though his shooting has been off so far, he can run the team pretty well.”
Despite being out of an NBA job this season, Alston is still very well known in China for his three and a half years with Yao Ming in Houston, as well as for his streetball days in the late 1990s when he was known as “Skip To My Lou.” Since the nickname doesn’t translate easily into Chinese, fans simply refer to him more simply as Jie Qiu Wang, “Streetball King.”
