Take a bow: Wang Zhizhi - End of an era!

KUALA LUMPUR (Mageshwaran's AsiaScope) - This past Sunday witnessed a unique moment in international basketball history as Guo Shiqiang, the coach of Liaoning embrace the veteran Wang Zhizhi of the rival team (Bayi), after the latter's swan song game of his playing career.

In any other situation, this would have looked normal: a coach giving a legend of the game a farewell hug. But here the situation was indeed unique in that Guo Shiqiang played his first international game long after Wang Zhizhi had become a star and had since then gone into coaching, where as Wang Zhizhi had continued to play the game with more vigor and prowess with every passing day.

Not that Guo Shiqiang had any less impressive a career as a player, but just that Wang Zhizhi's own outlasted all his contemporaries - and many even after that. Did senescence have any meaning at all!

Yao Ming might have been the biggest star in Chinese basketball, but Wang Zhizhi was undoubtedly the first superstar from the world's largest basketball nation and had indeed gone on to play a good five years after Yao had hung his boot.

"Thank you all for always being there for me," an emotional Wang Zhizhi said to his fans after the game. But more importantly, he had always been there whenever China went through a crisis on court bailing them out more often than not, sometimes with his mere presence.

The gold medal game at the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games as well as the playoff games at the 26th FIBA Asia Championship in Wuhan, China in 2011 when on both occasions Wang Zhizhi was at the vanguard of China's gold medals were obvious examples for his continued display of leadership qualities.

Bob Donewald, the coach of the Chinese team during those two gold medal campaigns summed all the fans' sentiments: "Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your career - a lot of wonderful moments together, moments I will never forget. Your career touched the lives of many people in a positive way. You should be very proud, and China should be proud to call you theirs!"

Tributes and accolades poured in for Wang Zhizhi, but that's something he'd been used to right from the day when he averaged 22.2 points per game at his maiden international appearance at the 1995 FIBA World Championship for Junior Men in Greece. And the tributes continued till he wound up his career in the CBA logging 16.6 points per game in 34 appearances.

"Wang Zhizhi reminds me of Bob McAdoo," the erstwhile NBA Commissioner David Stern said during a media conference earlier this year.

"He may retire but he'll keep shooting. He was a terrific player and a great spokesperson for Chinese basketball, and he had a very accurate eye, and I'm sure the CBA will miss him."

Here again, I merely borrow the words of a more famous and accomplished personality in our sport to reflect the emotions and sentiments of millions of fans.

As for Wang Zhizhi himself, in his own words: "Life is filled with happiness and sadness. We've fallen behind the best teams in the world, but Chinese basketball has to move on."

Move on, we surely will Dazhi! But we never thought of a life without seeing you on court! Adios to a true a legend of sport! And thank you for being there always, well almost forever!

So long…

S Mageshwaran

FIBA Asia

FIBA's columnists write on a wide range of topics relating to basketball that are of interest to them. The opinions they express are their own and in no way reflect those of FIBA.

FIBA takes no responsibility and gives no guarantees, warranties or representations, implied or otherwise, for the content or accuracy of the content and opinion expressed in the above article.