Can Bucheon Hana 1Q, a women’s professional basketball team, rise to the top next season?
Hana 1 Q is a team that has been in last place for the past two years in a row. It’s not a recent problem, but it’s a ‘ten thousand year low’ that has never been to the playoffs for more than 10 years since the team was founded in 2012.
In women’s professional basketball, the bank teams Woori Bank, KB, and Shinhan Bank take turns winning the championship, as well as the ‘later runner’ BNK, which is in contrast to the championship match in the 2022-2023 season.
For the last two years in a row, they have been at the bottom, and their record has been 11 wins and 49 losses, with a win rate of 18.3%.
Last week, forward Kim Jong-un, who played an active role as the national team’s ace, was recruited as a free agent (FA) and fired a signal for change.
Even if you look at the recent events, there are numerous incidents and accidents.
In the 2015-2016 season, the grandmother of an American player named Chelsea Lee claimed to be Korean and entered the league to compete in the championship match.
In addition, it was difficult to understand that Kang I-seul, who was the team’s flagship player in 2021, obtained the qualification as a free agent (FA) and changed into a KB Kookmin Bank uniform, but did not designate a compensation player and chose compensation.
Even when there was Kang Isul, the fact that the team that was in the bottom ranks took away Kang Isul and chose the reward money instead of the compensation player was no different from a declaration that ‘we will continue to remain in the lower ranks’.
Fans’ frustration was added to the loss-making trade.
In May 2021, immediately after Kang Iseul transferred to KB, instead of receiving beads in a trade, he gave Kang Yu-rim and two rookie first-round nomination rights to Samsung Life Insurance.
Due to an injury, Bead played only two games for Hana 1Q and obtained FA status and transferred to Shinhan Bank, and the rookie of the year nomination right eventually became Kiana Smith from the US Women’s Professional Basketball (WNBA).
In other words, Hana 1 Q only lost Kang Yoo-rim, who was the rookie of the year, and the rookie nomination right.
It was Hana 1 Q’s annual event that leading players leave the team as soon as they get FA qualifications.
Without exception, the team’s leading players such as Kim Jong-un, Park Ha-na, and Kang I-seul chose to transfer instead of remaining during FA, and Kim Ye-jin, who ranked first in the steel category in the 2022-2023 season, also changed to a KB uniform last week.
In the basketball world, it is regrettable that Hana 1Q manages the women’s basketball team at a level of ‘neglect’.
This is because Hana Financial Group is showing a ‘big hand’ in other sports such as hosting golf tournaments, sponsoring players, sponsoring the Korea Football Association, and running the professional soccer team Daejeon Hana Citizen, but it is particularly passive compared to other competing banks in women’s basketball.
Ham Young-joo, chairman of Hana Financial Group, personally watched the home games of Daejeon Hana Citizen, a professional football team, twice this year.
Unlike golf and soccer, which started with love for the sport, the process of acquiring the Shinsegae club, which was disbanded in 2012, in women’s basketball was described as ‘crying and eating mustard’ in a central daily newspaper. It may be too much.카지노
First of all, Hana 1 Q recruited veteran forward Kim Jong-un, who played an active role as the national ace in the FA market last week. It is the ‘return of the ace’ who left Hana 1Q as a free agent in 2017 and headed for Woori Bank.
Kim Jong-un, who has been active as the ‘lonely ace’ of the ‘10,000-year-old’ team since 2006, when Hana 1Q’s predecessor Shinsegae, expressed his feelings on returning, saying, “I will make it a club that players want to come to even a little more.”
The return of Kim Jong-un will certainly help improve the image of the Hana 1 Q club, but unless there is a fundamental change in the management of the club, the Hana 1 Q basketball team’s leap to the top may be a vague dream.