Ex-NBA star Zhou Qi apologises after China basketball legend calls him ‘big shot’ for turning up late to interview
- Zhou, who left Houston Rockets in December after two years, arrives 55 minutes late for interview with former national team player Wang Shipeng
- ‘You should finally know why you can’t play in the NBA – it’s not because of your skills, it’s your conduct,’ Wang said, but the two have made up
Chinese basketball legend Wang Shipeng said he has accepted an apology from Zhou Qi after originally slamming the former NBA star for “playing big shot” when turned up nearly an hour late for an interview.
Former national team star Wang, who retired from the CBA Guangdong Southern Tigers three years ago, did not mention Zhou’s name in an outburst on his Weibo micro blog earlier this week. But with the Rockets being mentioned, it was clear he was referring to the 23-year-old Zhou, who left the NBA side in December after two disappointing seasons.
“You should finally know why you can’t play in the NBA, it’s not the problem of your skills, it’s because of your conduct,” Wang said. “Maybe the Rockets thought they might produce another superstar even bigger than Chris Paul and James Harden.
“Something you have promised, but then you changed it from seven o’clock to nine o’clock. We waited for an hour from nine and eventually you said you were not coming.”
Wang, who won eight CBA titles with Southern Tigers and was the 2011 CBA finals MVP, having started with Guangdong in the CBA in 1999 when he was only 16, said he had never tried to come across as such a “big shot” in his career.