Zhou Qi has been hot lately, after sending 7 blocks in a single game and playing a dominant performance, even the Australian media have been impressed by him, saying that the "Big Devil" can compete for the MVP of the NBL League, at least to get the best defensive player award.
That is to say, after only 3 games, Zhou Qi proved himself to be the top center of the NBL. So the question is, if this development continues, what is the possibility of Zhou Qi returning to the NBA in the future?
Although Zhou Qi's tone to the outside world is to focus on playing the current game, many Chinese fans hope that he can use the NBL as a springboard to return to the NBA stage, after all, the Chinese men's basketball team has not landed in the NBA for many years, and now the closest Chinese player to the NBA is Zeng Fanbo, but his performance in the development league has proved that he is still very far away from the NBA.
Indeed, Zhou Qi was able to deliver 7 blocks in a single game, covering the opponent's center forward with a skeptical life, proving that even if he is placed in the NBL, he is also a top inside lineman.
However, people overlook the fact that the NBL's internal general ability is average. Through these NBL games, it can be seen that Australia's excellent homegrown centers are extremely scarce today, after experiencing the era of blowouts of center such as Bogut and David Anderson, no one in Australia's young interior line can take over, and the star of hope, Thorne Mack, has just been cut by European teams, averaging only 2 points per game.
Therefore, the NBL internal line that Zhou Qi faces, in terms of strength, is probably not as good as some of the CBA's foreign aid, and even Yi Jianlian and Han Dejun are difficult to compare. Therefore, when these insiders tried to single-handedly hit Zhou Qi, they were purely here to send people's heads, and it was reasonable for Zhou Qi to even fan 7 big hats.
In the NBA, Zhou Qi not only faces an internal impact that is not a grade with the NBL, but also has super strong forwards such as James and Durant to impact the inner line, can he withstand it?
In addition, Zhou Qi's defense has actually reached the requirements of the NBA, after all, when playing in the NBA before, D'Antoni had used him to defend Porzingis, which fully shows that the defensive ability of the "Great Devil" has been recognized.
However, it is difficult to gain a foothold in the NBA, unless Zhou Qi's defense is enough to match Gobert's. Zhou Qi's current scoring defense is still a second offense and teammates feed the cake, but in the NBA, will his teammates take care of him like this? When playing in the NBA, Zhou Qi could only be used as a cannon turret to shoot three points on the outside because he did not have the ability to attack independently, so he was eventually cut back to the CBA League.
Now, Zhou Qi's offense has not made much progress, which is enough in the NBL, but it is obviously far behind in the NBA.
Therefore, it is still too early to assert that Zhou Qi can return to the NBA to play.