Hong Kong Eastern aim for mainland China basketball league with Philippines plan

Hong Kong Eastern are in talks to compete in the Philippines Basketball Association (PBA) season from November, as they look to eventually secure a place in China’s top league.

The reigning local A1 Division champions were exploring the opportunities to participate in the Commissioner’s Cup for the coming 2024-25 season, which runs from late November to early March next year.

Eastern officials said things are still in an “early” stage but that initial talks with the Philippines’ basketball governing body in Manila on Thursday were positive.

“This is part of our plans to support the government’s calls for the development of the sports industry,” Oliver Lee Wan-bok, the team’s manager, said. “We wish to bring competitive regional basketball to the city when Kai Tak Sports Park opens.

“We want to play in the PBA as well as the East Asia Super League [EASL] and our ultimate goal remains playing in the Chinese Basketball Association. We believe it’s a good idea to continue seeking regional exposure and play in the highest possible standard of basketball while we wait for progress on the mainland China front.”

The Commissioner’s Cup is expected to feature 12 teams, divided into two groups of six in a home-and-away format, giving each team 12 regular season games which ends on January 31.

A FIBA window for international basketball is sandwiched between the three knockout stages, with the quarter-finals set to run from February 2 to 9 and the semi-finals and the finals at the end of February.

“We want to play our six home games at Kai Tak, preferably three in one December week, and three more in one January week,” Lee added. “We could also do all six in January, and are working with the arena to see if we could host our games at Kai Tak.”

The Post understands, however, that Eastern’s plan to split their home games into two blocks could be hindered because Kai Tak may not be able to secure the required licences by the end of this year, despite initial plans to host a basketball test event in the first week of December.

Eastern would be following in the footsteps of the now-disbanded Bay Area Dragons, who played in the Commissioner’s Cup during the 2022-23 season. The former EASL franchise team finished top of the 13-team table in the regular season before falling just short of the title after a seven-game thrilling series, with the title decider against Barangay Ginebra San Miguel drawing a crowd of 54,589 to the Philippine Arena.

“The Philippines is a basketball-crazy country,” Lee said. “With our experiences of hosting Asean Basketball League matches, and what we witnessed when Hong Kong hosted the Philippines in the FIBA Asia Cup qualifiers [in February], we are confident we can fill stadiums.

“Basketball remains one of the most popular sports in Hong Kong, and with the visiting fans from respective Philippines’ cities, we believe we could fill up to 80 per cent of Kai Tak’s indoor arena capacity.”