What is happening to Fan Ziming?

There has been a lot of criticism on Fan Ziming as of late. Probably mainly for the high expectations coming with the 30 million RMB transfer fee price tag. But should expectations have been high in the first place? Beijing should know what caliber players they are going in Fan Ziming and fans should give a young big man some time to adjust to his new team and pressure.

We all know that so far Fan Ziming has been horrific. He’s been very inefficient and unable to make shots or finish at the time and is at a career low shooting only 41.9% from the field, drastically lower than 59.8% last season with Xinjiang. Defensively Fan has been the same as in the past as he shows good effort and actually is producing the same Rim Protection numbers as last season with opponents shooting 45% against him at the rim.

Let’s get into a few more details on differences in performance between this season and last with Xinjiang. We obviously must note that playing alongside Zhou Qi got Fan Ziming a lot of open dump off baskets at the rim and made it easier for him to grab offensive rebounds as Zhou Qi got all the defensive attention. It also needs to be mentioned that playing alongside Zhou Qi always resulted in the weaker big man from the opposing team guarding him. His offensive rebounding percentage has dropped from 11.3% to currently only 8.7%. This is unlikely related to Zhou Qi as even when he was with Guangzhou in 2017 his offensive rebounding percentage was above 11%. We do expect this percentage to go up as he has had some tough match ups and excellent rebounders he went up against for example playing Guangsha twice already in 10 games with Hu Jinqiu dominating him on the boards. We must take into consideration that Beijing has had a relatively tough schedule to start the season which is related to Fan Zimings poor performances as well.

Fan Ziming 2020-21 Beijing Ducks

Although on very small sample size, Fan Ziming is shooting the Midrange jump shot very poorly as he is currently 0-8. Even though he shot a respectable 45% from midrange last season it is something he should probably remove from his game (Link to Mid-Range Article). He has a slow shooting set up which leads to a slow release, making it easy to get his shot contested. He hasn’t been able to fix his shooting problems nor shown adequate 3-point range. A player like Fan who does not posses elite athleticism and length would really boost his production if he was able to stretch the floor and shoot the 3-point shoot, but it doesn’t seem like it’s something he can add to his game anymore although it was something he tried when he was with Guangzhou.

Finishing at the rim has gotten tougher as Beijing’s offense is not nearly as good as Xinjiang and as they play a much slower style not creating open looks early in the shot clock. Fan Ziming transition scoring has gone down drastically because of this from 14.1% of the time to only 7.8% so far this season. Last season Fan Ziming had an incredible 1.70 PPP finishing at the rim, mainly open dump offs at the rim. This year that number has decreased to 1.33 which is still a respectable number overall for any offense, but he is not getting open nearly as often.

Fan Ziming 2019-20 Xinjiang Flying Tigers

With Beijing from a playing style point of view it is a positive thing that they look to score in the pick and roll and give Fan the ball rolling to the rim, where in Xinjiang they did a lot less even though it was the most efficient scoring type for Fan Ziming. But Beijing is not getting him open dunks or layups at the rim like Xinjiang was, with a big part being Zhou Qi getting a lot of defensive attention, but also the team offense being much more efficient overall.

In conclusion Fan Zimings horrific start to the season is because of a combination of poor team offense by Beijing, poor rebounding and finishing by Fan Ziming himself, and a tough schedule resulting in tough matchups for Fan Ziming. We will see Fan put up bigger numbers against weaker teams and weaker opponents in the near future. But overall we must know Fan Ziming is just a good role player in the CBA, and there shouldn’t ever have been too high expectations set for him as we don’t expect him to develop his game much further.

为什么范子铭的表现不如预期？

近来有很多批评范子铭的声音，也许是因为他三千万转会费的标签让人们对他期待颇高，所谓期望越高，落差越大。但人们最初对他的期望值这么高是合理的吗？北京队应该很清楚当时自己要签下球员的水平，球迷们也应该更宽容的给这位年轻球员一些时间去适应新的角色。

本赛季截止到目前范子铭的表现很不好，他打得很没有效率，投篮不进或者不能在篮下终结，他本赛季的命中率仅有41.9%，上赛季在新疆队的命中率为59.8%，这个落差相当大。在防守端范子铭足够努力，护筐数据和上赛季持平，对手在篮下面对他时的投篮命中率为45%。

接下来，我们看看细节上他与上赛季在新疆队的一些区别。我们必须指出当周琦在身边时，范子铭很容易拿下前场篮板把球补进，因为周琦吸引了所有的防守注意力；同时因为有周琦的存在，对方防守范子铭的球员都是一个相对较弱的内线球员。范子铭的进攻篮板率上赛季为11.3%，本赛季截止目前为8.7%，但这个变化很难和周琦联系到一起，因为之前范子铭在广州队效力时进攻篮板率也在11%以上。我们认为他的进攻篮板率之后会有所提升，因为之前的比赛中他频繁遭遇了一些难对付的防守者和非常优秀的篮板球员，比如北京在10场比赛中已经两次对上广厦，而胡金秋在篮板球方面有极强的统治能力。我们必须要考虑北京本赛季的赛程的确在开头相对艰难，这也与范子铭的表现不佳有一定关系。

目前本赛季的样本数量还太少，范子铭中投数据为8投0中，尽管上赛季他的中投命中率达到了45%，但本赛季他也许应该考虑放弃中投（详情点击“中国球员应该在进攻端更多的选择中投吗？文章）。他投篮动作慢，也导致了他的出手较慢，这就给了对手更多干扰他投篮的机会。目前他还没有解决这个问题，同时也没有展示出较好的三分投射能力。像范子铭这样不具备极好的运动能力和臂展的球员，如果能够拉开空间去投三分，他的产出和效率会增加很多。目前来看他似乎不考虑这么做，但他之前在广州队时是尝试过三分投射的。

北京的进攻和新疆不属于同一层次，而这也会使篮下终结变得更困难。北京的风格要比新疆慢很多，他们很少利用快攻转换得分。这也导致范子铭的转换得分从上赛季的14.1%跌至7.8%，上赛季他的篮下终结数据是1.70PPP（平均每回合得分），一个相当惊人的数字，主要来自于篮下上空篮和扣篮。今年降为1.33PPP，这个数据也相当不错，但本赛季到目前为止范子铭很少能得到篮下上空篮的机会。   从打法角度来讲，北京做的好的一点是范子铭挡拆后下顺机会比在新疆时多，这是范子铭最有效率的得分方式。但另一方面，他在篮下吃饼效率变低，说明北京队不太能够给他创造出篮下空位机会。   总而言之，本赛季目前为止范子铭表现不如人意的原因有以下几点：1.北京整体进攻较弱；2.范子铭自己在篮板和篮下终结方面表现不佳；3.北京队的前期赛程很艰难，相应的范子铭遭遇的防守球员也都较强。之后当北京遭遇一些比较弱的球队时，范子铭的数据会提高很多。但总的来说，我们应该清醒地意识到范子铭的定位，他应该是CBA中一名不错的角色球员，对他过高的期待和设定是本不该存在的，他之后的进步也可能不会太大。