Du Feng, Li Nan appointed coaches of Chinese men's national basketball team

BEIJING, April 28 (Xinhua) -- Former Chinese men's basketball national team members Du Feng and Li Nan have been appointed as the new coaches of the national team, the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) announced here on Friday.

According to the plan of Yao Ming, the newly elected CBA president, there will be two national teams organized. Each coach will lead one independent team to train under the same conditions. The two teams will play in different international competitions before they merge into one in 2019 to prepare for the 2019 World Cup in China and the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.

Both Du Feng and Li Nan enjoyed successful careers as two of the best forwards in China; combined, they bagged over 10 championship titles with Guangdong and Bayi in the CBA league. Du led Guangdong head into last season's CBA finals against Xinjiang after he became the coach of the team he played for. Li Nan assisted national team coach Gong Luming in China's triumph at 2015 Asian Championships.

The two were teammates when the national team entered the top eight in the 2004 and 2008 editions of the Olympic Games. They are now competing for a single coaching seat when the two teams become one in 2019.

Du Feng and Li Nan are coaching Guangdong and Shandong respectively in the preliminaries for China's National Games.