Building The ULTIMATE Shanghai Sharks Meme Team!!! I Strictly Bball Podcast Episode

The Shanghai Sharks is a CBA team based in Shanghai and many people jokingly treat it as a landing spot for players who are underperforming in the NBA. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the second ever episode of the Strictly B-Ball podcast. I'm Joe alongside my co-host Nolan. Nolan, how are we feeling today? I'm feeling pretty good. I've been overwhelmed a little bit given how it's the second week of school senior year so we're getting settled in, but I am very excited to be here. Can't wait to tell this story. Joe, how are you doing? I'm doing good, man. I haven't started school yet but nothing's better to take your mind off. First couple of weeks of school, talking a little basketball. I'm sure you got something good for us today. Today I have a banger concept. We're gonna be talking about the Shanghai Sharks. The Shanghai Sharks is a CBA team based in Shanghai and many people jokingly treat it as a landing spot for players who are underperforming in the NBA. Joe, Shanghai Sharks, what's the first player that comes to mind? Are you talking about the actual team or? Oh, I'm talking about the actual team. I'm talking about the actual team. We're talking about that. Ladies and gentlemen, we are talking about the actual Shanghai Sharks. Okay. So not Ben Simmons. Okay, not Ben Simmons. Go ahead. That's the one that came to mind for you? Yeah. That's what I thought. Okay. All right. So Joe kind of drew me into it, but we're gonna be talking about the starting five for the Shanghai Sharks. The actual starting five for the team. It's a very talented team. They play professionally. Yeah, they're a team based in the CBA. Yeah, they're very talented. Okay. So starting at the point guard, we got Ben Simmons. I'm joking. No, I'm totally joking. That's what I thought you were gonna do. No, no, no, no. Yeah, yeah. We're not doing that. The starting point guard is actually college legend, Jimmer Ferdet. Oh yeah. Jimmer Ferdet is a starting point guard for the Shanghai Sharks. Chinese basketball legend. Yup. He averaged 20. Well, we'll start a little bit earlier before his professional career. He actually averaged 29 points per game his senior year at BYU. That's absolutely insane. And that led him to be the 10th overall pick in the 2011 draft. Sadly, it didn't work out for him in the NBA, which led him to finding some success, some great success. Great success. This past season, he averaged 27, six, and six for the Sharks. Yeah, to my knowledge, he dropped a couple of 70 point games too. Yup, I was gonna get into that. He has developed into one of the best scorers the CBA has ever seen. He's the only player in CBA history to have multiple 70 point games. There's been, I think there's, there's been less than 10 players who have dropped 70 points, but he's the only player to do it on multiple occasions. He's like the Wilt of that league. You could say Jimmer Ferdet is the Wilt of the CBA. Got it, yup. And he's not even one of the, he is one of the best players in the CBA, but there's actually a lot of- I think it's definitely a high scoring league too. Like a lot of guys are dropping. I saw like Marcus Georges Hunt, who was like a very short standing NBA drop, like a 68 point game. But anyways, that's the starting point guard, Jimmer Ferdet, ladies and gentlemen. The starting shooting guard, I don't know if you heard him or not, Marcus Denman. Doesn't ring a bell. Okay, Denman is a former Missouri guard who had a successful four-year college career. He averaged 18 points per game in his senior season. Very solid in colleges, you know, very solid. He ended up being drafted in the second round by the San Antonio Spurs, but sadly he didn't really get playing until a year. I don't even remember. Do you know how you got drafted? It was in the mid tens, it was like 2015, if I'm not mistaken. Somewhere around there, mid tens. He was drafted by the Spurs, got no playing time as a rookie, and he decided to take his talents overseas. He's a starting shooting guard and this is his seventh season playing for- Oh, seventh season playing professionally. So it actually was probably like what, like 2013? Yeah. It must've been when he was drafted or was in- If he was like right out of the- He just didn't make it in the NBA at all, probably. Yeah, he just didn't get any playing time as a rookie. Got you. Yep. And then he actually is averaging, or this past season, he averaged 18 points per game for the Sharks. Very solid. Would you say he's like their number two guy? I would say, I would say he's their number two guy. He's the second leading scorer on their team, but I'm actually getting into a very interesting player, Howin Guo, who starts at the three. I don't remember exactly what he averaged. I think it was like 11 points per game, but he's more so a younger player. He's a 6'7", 21-year-old player who most likely will be in the NBA. He actually was in the draft combine, but he withdrew because he wanted more time to develop. He kind of- Yeah, he actually, he kind of got like the feel of what it's like being around better talent, I guess. And he thought he wasn't ready and he wanted to develop a little bit more. So he withdrew from the draft and he's going to be playing, I believe for the Sharks again, but he's going to be playing professionally, just not in the NBA. But interestingly enough, this is according to NBA G League. I couldn't find any other source backing this, but NBA G League, they put out a tweet. He went pro. I'm going to have you guess. He went pro at the age of what? I mean, international players, it's a lot different than the U.S. Of course. Rubio, what's it? 14, 15 years old. I'm going to guess 15. He went pro at the age of 12. He went pro at the- I kid you not. What do you mean by pro? Like, do you know the tweets? I have no idea. Just that's the tweet. Yeah, that was the tweet. It just said he went pro. I wish I- 12 years, 12 years old. Yes, he went pro at the age of 12 years old. What were we doing at 12? We were making vines. Ah, why could I drop my croissant? For those chickens. We were making vines, doing trick shot videos in our backyard. That's what we were doing. Trick shots were huge. Yeah, trick shots were huge. Dude, perfect. How in, whoa, what was he doing at 12? He was playing pro ball. He's playing pro ball. So that's interesting. He's 21 years old. What did you say he was averaging? Did you have that on there? I didn't. I don't know exactly what he was averaging. But starting for the Shanghai Sharks, CBA, 21. And he's six, he's six, seven. Like he's a lengthy, he's a guard too. He has guard skills. He does have guard skills. He can- I will keep an eye out for him. Yup. At the four, and yeah, that's a starting small forward. At the four, we have Dong Hanlin. He's had a long professional career playing 13 seasons so far in the CBA. He's the vet. He is the vet. He's the vet of the team. He averages eight and seven. He averaged eight and seven this past season for the Sharks. Solid numbers. You know, he's a role player. He does his job. Ever get an NBA shot? No, he all, it was just CBA. I'm pretty, yeah. I think the only thing, the only league he's ever played in professionally is the CBA. Okay. And then to round off the starting five, we have Zhang Zhan. And he actually averages 14 and six for the Sharks. They must put up a lot of points per game. They do put up a lot of points per game. But interestingly enough, like how talented do you, how talented does this squad seem for like a professional team? I mean, Jimmer, NBA talent, just below NBA talent. Obviously the 21 year old is young, but Marcus Denman was a great high major player. From what you're telling me, I think it's like, I always feel like the CBA is like a little bit of a step down from the EuroLeague, which is a little bit step down from the NBA. Yeah. But I don't know. They're probably one of the better teams in the CBA would be my guess. Interestingly enough, interestingly enough, they're one of the worst. Really? Yes, they're one of the worst. Their record is- My question is how did the Shanghai Sharks become the CBA team? Like everyone knows them as like, I mean, I could name the Guangdong Tigers. Which I was going to get into that. Okay. Yeah. That's the only other team in the CBA I can name. But just Shanghai Sharks, just like- No, you're- Actually, you know what? I think it is. I think it's- Jeremy Lin played on the Shanghai Sharks in producer. Did he? I think he did. Whatever. Whenever you left. But I was going to say, you know the, on TNT, the, where Charles Barkley does the who he play for. They put up a picture. You've never seen that? I think I have. It's like, they put up a picture and Charles Barkley just never knows any of the players they put up. Yeah. And they do it at the opening night of every year. Yeah. And one of them, they put up a dude. I forgot who it was, but then he was on the Shanghai Sharks and Barkley had no idea. And then Shaq somehow guessed it. I think it might've been, they might've been talking about Jimmer when he was first up there. That would make sense. But yeah, that's, I, maybe that's what I said. Somehow the Sharks just became the team. It just became a meme. Cause like whenever, like I mentioned, you hear Shanghai Sharks, you just think of, you just like, for me, I just think about Ben Simmons. I think like an NBA player is underperforming. Like, oh, they're headed to the Shanghai Sharks. Yup. But like, why is it the Shanghai Sharks? Like that's. It's gotta just be like the most like recognizable team. Team overseas. Yeah. Cause of Jimmer. That's it. It's cause of Jimmer. But also, yeah. Also the, I know it was on who he played for. One of the years, a few years back. But yeah, you mentioned it. The Guang, is it Guangdong? Guangdong. Guangdong Southern Tigers. They're like, they're like the Lakers Celtics of the CBA. They have 11 championships and they won the title in the 2020, 2021 season. And they finished with a record of 40. Did I say the record? The Sharks had a record, losing record of 22 and 30. Like I said, they're one of the worst or they were one of the worst. And then the Tigers, the Southern Tigers, they finished with 46 and six. That was their record. And their, their leading score was Marshawn Brooks. He's a former NBA player. Marshawn. I remember him. Marshawn Brooks. He is a bucket. He averaged. He played for the Nets, I believe. I think he played for the, he may have at some point, but I think he played for the Grizzlies too. Yeah. Yep. And then he, he's averaging 27 points per game. Very solid. Is he the MVP? I, I don't even, I think, I think it was different. I'm pretty sure how they do it is they do like, I don't even know how they, but he, he's one of the best players in the league. I was like looking up the, the players that are averaging. You said 46 and six? Yeah, there was a record. Yeah. Wow. 52, 52 game season. Yeah. But yeah, surprisingly enough with all that talent that I, I mentioned with their starting five, they're not even one of the best. So there's a lot of talent in the CBA. Maybe they're too good to be the meme team. Maybe it has to be a Sharks. Cause they're, they've a losing record. That makes sense. That would make sense. They go into the Southern Tigers. Like that's, you can't go out to Southern Tigers. You can't go out to Southern Tigers. Like they're, they're, they're elite. They're really good right now. So we mentioned Ben Simmons, but yo, I gotta, gotta ask you who is, we're, we're back into the meme. We're back into the meme kind of mindset of this. Okay. Who is your, your all NBA Shanghai Sharks team? Okay. This changed, this changes every year. It's pretty much who is getting hated on the most on NBA Twitter. I feel like I'm going to go with mostly basing this off of the 2021 NBA playoffs. Okay. Cause I feel like that's just who's getting the most hate right now. And I feel like that's who's usually on the team. Cause if like this team switches every year, even like every month, like who's getting the most hate on pretty much who's getting most hate on NBA Twitter. A year ago, it would have been Danny Green. Who else would it have been? It would have been Kyle Kuzma still. Kuzma never leaves this team. He might be the most prominent player on the Shanghai Sharks. Yes. But at the starting point guard, I'm going with, I'm going with Ben Simmons. At the starting point guard. He's got to be on the team. He has to be on the team. Obviously he had probably the most just brutal playoff letdown. The Sixers lost to the Hawks. Much of that you could say was because Ben Simmons shot mid thirties from the free throw line. Horrible. Took like two shots in the fourth quarter. They couldn't even play him at times in the fourth. Yeah. So Ben Simmons is definitely a starting point guard on this team. I just think, I think there has to be so much for him that's just mental with how he played in the playoffs. He's a great player. He's a former all-star. He's an all NBA player in the past. It's all mental for him. And I think a different situation like Minnesota Timberwolves would fix a lot of that for him. He's got past chemistry with Thilo. He does. Montverde Academy. Yup. They play together. I feel like him and Towns would get along very well. Ben Simmons did put Towns in headlock one time. I think that was during the Embiid-Towns fight. But they're fine. They did that Foot Locker commercial together. I know. That's what I'm thinking about. Where D-Low threw the phone snitching or whatever. That's a trio. D-Low, Towns, Ben Simmons. We're gonna see it pretty soon in Minnesota. And Booker. And then Booker in a few years. Yeah, Booker. But yeah, Ben Simmons on the team. Horrible playoff performance. Shooting guard, Joe Harris. Yeah. You gotta agree with that one? Yes. Okay. Joe Harris. I watched every Bucs game very intently. I did not. Rooting for the Bucs. But Joe Harris was, he just didn't make any shots. I think every time he took a shot, I just held my breath. Cause I was thinking like, he's gonna hit one here. He's gonna get hot. He never did. Which is surprising. I mean, he's like a 40% three-point shooter. You could say, like coming into these playoffs. And I think you could still say it. He's maybe the best catch and shoot three-point shooter in the league. He's up there top five. He's a three-point champion at the All-Star game. Yeah. I think multiple times. He's up there with Duncan Robinson, Steph Curry, Seth Curry. Clay Thompson. Cannot forget about him. He's easy to forget about. Can't wait to see him back. He hasn't played in so long. Yeah. But anyways. Joe Harris. I think I saw one stat and you might've seen this, but so this one relates to Ben Simmons and Joe Harris. A little combination far back for here. A stat that was, it took all Ben Simmons three-pointers he's taken in his career and compared him to Joe Harris' playoff three-pointers. And it was the exact same made and attempts. So I think it was like three for whatever, 21 or something, maybe three for 15. I can't remember what it was, but it was just incredible. That stat or graphic, whatever you saw alone puts him on this team. 100%. Yeah, Joe Harris. And he's going to be back. He's got the shooter's mentality. He doesn't care. He kept shooting in the playoffs. Ben Simmons, a lot of mental stuff there, but it's definitely different. I mean, Joe Harris, he'll come back into the 2021, 2022 season shooting Ben Simmons. Maybe if he's on the Wolves, he will. But other than that, who knows? But Kyle Kuzma, small forward. I already thought about this one. Kyle Kuzma is a staple on the Shanghai Sharks meme team because I'll tell you why I think he doesn't deserve to be here necessarily, but why he will never leave. As long as, actually he may leave now cause he's out of the spotlight. He's on the Wizards. But the big three, the big three in DC. Bradley Beal, Spencer Dinwiddie, Kyle Kuzma. They're running the East. What a big three there. What a big three right there. But yeah, Kyle Kuzma on the Lakers. He got a lot of the spotlight, which is obviously good for him. But I think the reason he's always there is because he had a great rookie season. He was on the all-rookie team. He had a lot of potential. He was an older rookie, but people didn't really think about that. And the Lakers pretty much chose Brandon Ingram, or they chose Kyle Kuzma over Brandon Ingram and Lonzo. So the expectations for Kuzma were like, so LeBron was there and after rookie year with Kuzma, you bring in AD. It's like, all right, that's a big three. But you cannot expect Kyle Kuzma to be your big three. I think Kyle Kuzma belongs as the eighth guy in a good team. I'm serious. Like, I think he's a role player. I just find it funny because it's just the expectations. The expectations are like, AD goes down and the media is like, Kuzma needs to step in for AD. Well, you cannot say that. And that's what puts him on the Shanghai Sharks team. Part of it too. Like you mentioned, he's going to DC. There's always going to be a lot of spotlight and attention on the Lakers. Now that he's not there, it's, you know. Yeah. There's always going to be that spotlight on the Lakers. But yeah, Kyle Kuzma, he's never going to live up to the hype. But now he's on the spotlight. Maybe that brings him off the Shanghai Sharks team, but not yet. Power forward. Switching my power forward to Ben Simmons. Because I'm putting Schroeder at the one. Okay. Schroeder with the one. Mr. Fumbled the bag. Yeah. Tragic story for him. Similar thing happened to Oladipo. That doesn't get talked about a lot, but. I'm not too familiar with that. Oladipo turned down like a four-year extension with the Pacers. And then turned down a two-year extension with the Rockets. And now he's on a minimum. But Oladipo's on a minimum? Yeah. He, I think he'll have a comeback year. He's still in the heat, right? He's back in the heat, yeah. He could be pretty solid. He's going to be good. Yeah, they're going to be good. There are some dogs in Miami, like straight up and down the lineup. But, especially Duncan Robinson. Now, I like Duncan Robinson, but. I do too. You got Lowry and they brought in Marcus Morris. But yeah, Schroeder fumbled the bag. Belongs on the team. He had a horrible playoffs. I think he should just kind of fit back into that six-man role at the Celtics. And try to earn his way back. If he has a similar season that he did with the Thunder, he can earn his way back to that. Maybe get a four-year deal. Maybe get $60 million. Regain some of those losses. Maybe $100 million. Maybe he gets it. He's not a $100 million man. He's not. Six-man of the year type of guy. I think he should have won over Montrez in 2020. But, he belongs on the Shanghai Sharks for now. For now, he does. And at the center position, it's Kristaps Porzingis. Yeah. The real, the real playoff P. Yeah, not Paul George. It's Kristaps Porzingis. People always wanted to be Paul George. Why can't I have the things that I want? Sorry about that. He deserved it for a little bit of time. But even this year, when he'd have one bad game, which every star, like maybe not superstar, but every star has a bad game. Yeah. It's like playoff P is number one on trending. But he had a great playoffs. Great time when Kawhi was out. He led that team. Along with Terrence Mann. Yeah. Porzingis needs to step up. He needs to be that number two for, he can be that number two. He can be it. In the bubble, they were a dynamic duo for a bit. You could really see both of them were dropping like 40-point games. He can be that number two. Kuzma can't be that guy. But Porzingis can be. And if he's not, they gotta trade him. Luka needs, Luka saved the Mavericks by re-signing a Max extension. And the Mavericks need to do everything in their power to give him that number two and number three guy now. Yes. But Porzingis, again, deserves to be on this team. All right, I like it. So this is Joe's All-NBA Shanghai Sharks starting five at the one. And we got Dennis Schroeder at the two. We got Joe Harris three, Kyle Kuzma four, Ben Simmons, and five Kristaps Porzingis. Now I wanted to touch on Ben Simmons a little bit more. I have been seeing some footage surfacing on social media. Oh my God. Joe and I have talked about this before, earlier than this is what I meant, about just footage being released of Ben Simmons making shots. Some of you have probably seen it. He was in the gym with Rondo. He hasn't missed a three-pointer all summer. I haven't seen him miss a three-pointer this whole summer. It's crazy. He's one of the best three-point shooters I've ever seen. He hasn't missed. We might just see the best transition from, we're gonna see a Brooke Lopez-type just transformation of his game here. Yeah. He's hit Brooke Lopez and hit any threes in the beginning of his year, or his career. Now he's hit Splash Mountain. People might be calling Ben Simmons Splash something pretty soon, Splash Mountain. It wouldn't surprise me. I mean, with his percentages this summer, he hasn't missed. No, how do you feel about trainers and NBA players posting one-on-oh highlights, or just like... Yeah, I know what you mean. The other one was Ben Simmons. He was going through pick-and-rolls with dudes that were 5'10", and they were going through a pick-and-roll. Ben Simmons was the ball handler, and the dude set a screen. The guy goes over the screen on Ben Simmons. He's a shooting threat, and Ben Simmons just takes it in, just dunks it, and they post it on Instagram. Nobody's going over a screen on Ben Simmons. In fact, nobody even guards him anywhere near the three-point line. They won't even be able to set a screen on him because nobody guards him out there. But how do you feel about that? I mean, open gym, knocking down open threes, that's not anything special. Like, any player, any guy who plays basketball, any person that plays basketball can hit three threes straight. That's not that hard. Just a walk-up three, hit it three times, you film that, and that's a day. That is a workout. But, I mean, I don't know. It's just, we see this like every season. They just post these highlights, and it's just like, oh, Ben Simmons, he's knocking down shots. This is gonna translate well in the NBA, and it never happens. Or it's like big men who are going one-on-o, and they're showing some ball handling. Mitchell Robinson. Yes, yes, literally he's looking like KD. No, that's not gonna happen. It's like, are we seeing point Mitchell Robinson this year? No, we are not. No, Bam Adebayo. I was gonna say that too. He looks ridiculous, but yeah. I mean, Bam actually has shown that in the NBA. And Bam, I mean, Bam is really good too. But Mitchell Robinson's not gonna come out with KD's skill set. Imagine if he just did. He won't. Dude, that was like two summers ago, I feel like. Mitchell Robinson. Maybe. We've seen stuff with like JaVale McGee too, like hitting threes. Dwight Howard shooting threes. Dwight will not take a three, yeah. It's like, come on. If it's a player that doesn't typically shoot threes, and I see a video of them knocking down threes, open gym, wide open shots, anyone can do that. I'm sorry. My question is, why is Dwight Howard even practicing that? He should be wasting his time. He's wasting his time doing that. He is. Yeah, I think Ben Simmons definitely should. If Dwight Howard, can you imagine in the playoffs, Dwight Howard's like, all right, I've been working on it all summer. And he just pulls up for a three in the playoffs for the Lakers. That'd be shocking. That'd be so funny. Oh yeah, he is back on the Lakers. Yeah, they have seven Hall of Famers on their team. That's crazy. They got Rondo, they're getting Rondo back, Dwight, Carmelo, LeBron, AD. LeBron, AD's gonna be a Hall of Famer. Russell Westbrook's gonna be a Hall of Famer. Is that six? That's six. Who are we missing? Maybe they have six Hall of Famers on their team, or potential ones. Oh, Wayne Ellington, duh. Yeah, Wayne Ellington. No. Ah, that's funny. But yeah, so that, I just don't like that stuff. It's whatever. I don't wanna say I dislike it, but just, I don't like when people buy into it. Yeah, that's what I don't like. I mean, I see stuff with Zach Levine doing intense workouts. Maybe he's not the one posting it. The trainer posts it, but people, I don't like how it could trick people, or people are like, oh, he's actually knocking out threes. He's gonna, this is gonna translate well into the NBA. He's gonna come into the season confident as ever, shooting threes. Like, he doesn't have that mental barrier of I can't shoot. Yeah. He's still gonna have that. Moral of the story is, don't buy into summer workout videos. Ever. Literally, ever. Like, literally, every summer workout video, it's like, I'm not gonna buy into it. No, never. People might hate on it, too, but like, even Hoody Mello. Like, that was when that was. No, that was for real. Well, that was, he had his best season. That was when he was on the Thunder, right? Right? Well, he was kind of like fizzling out of the league, and like, that one is like the one. Oh, I do remember that. I take that back, because he was fizzling out of the league, and then, yeah, he was out for a season, wasn't he? Yeah. He was out for a season, and then he signed with Portland. Because the Rockets didn't believe in him. They thought he was like. Because he was traded from OKC. Rockets were like, they said that he can't be like a secondary, or like a six-man role, or come off the bench. And he got, he was out of the league for a little bit. But obviously, the trailblazers took a chance on him. Now he's going. That's who it is. What? On the Lakers. Who? Carmelo. Oh, yeah. Wait, did we say that? No, we don't think we said that. I don't know, whatever. That's the seventh guy. But, yeah, now he's keeps on playing. So, that one makes sense. That one does make sense. I take that back. But I mean, like. That's the only one I respect. But that's not the reason he got better, is because he's posting videos on social media. I mean, he's always just been like that. But like, yeah, Hoody Melo just kind of turned into. Other than Hoody Melo, never buy into that. Never. That's gonna wrap up the second episode of the Strictly B-Ball podcast. Make sure you're following us on all socials. Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, at Strictly B-Ball. And also make sure you subscribe, follow, and drop a comment or review on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. And we'll see you guys next time. Peace out.