A volume scorer that came off the bench for the Chicago Bulls last season, Antonio Blakeney, is lighting up the stat sheet this year in China.
Although most sports were shut down globally in the midst of the novel coronavirus pandemic, a lot of leagues are starting up again heading into the summer months. The NBA is set to resume games at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, FL, starting on July 30. And while the Chicago Bulls aren’t set to take part in the season’s resumption, they do have some former players in the NBA and overseas to root for that are taking part in game action.
Currently the most notable professional basketball league around the globe that is up and running is the Chinese Basketball Association. A number of former NBA players, including some ex-Bulls from recent years, are competing in the CBA this year. One of those former Bulls players competing in the CBA this season is the ex-LSU Tigers product and 6-foot-4 microwave scoring shooting guard Antonio Blakeney.
The Bulls elected to part ways with the 23-year-old Blakeney ahead of the 2019-20 season. He didn’t get another shot with another NBA team prior to the start of the current season, thus he wound up signing with the Jiangsu Kendia in the CBA.
So far in the current CBA season with Jiangsu, Blakeney put on a show. He’s played in seven games so far this season, starting in three of them. Blakeney has averaged an impressive 35.86 points per game, 6.9 rebounds, 2.9 assists, 1.5 steals, and 0.7 blocks. He did all that while shooting 51.1 percent from the field, 46.2 percent from beyond the arc, and 74.6 percent from the free-throw line.
That all amounted to a 61.6 true shooting percentage, 19 percent assist rate, 41.4 percent usage rate, 1.2 win shares, 25.7 player efficiency rating, and and 116 offensive rating. He’s showing off the volume scoring skills that the Bulls thought he could muster in the NBA when he was first coming out of the LSU basketball program.
Blakeney played in 76 games during his NBA run prior to landing overseas. He averaged 7.5 points per game, 1.8 rebounds, and 0.8 assists, over the course of two different regular seasons with the Bulls.