If there's one thing American fans know about the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA), it's the big per-game numbers that imported players put up in China.
Last season, little-known international veteran Jonathan Gibson led the CBA by averaging 42 points per game. Five other players, including former No. 2 pick of the NBA draft Michael Beasley, averaged at least 30.
Obviously, those performances don't translate directly to similar NBA performance. Take Alan Williams, who led the CBA with 15.4 rebounds per game. After signing with the Phoenix Suns at the conclusion of the Chinese season, Williams played just 6.8 minutes a night in the NBA.
So, with Chinese star Yi Jianlian headed to the Lakers, how can we understand the numbers players put up in the CBA?
"No crazy stats"
Beasley objects to the question. When I asked him about the "crazy" stats players average in China, he protests, "I didn't put no crazy stats up."
Really? Beasley averaged 31.9 points and 13.2 rebounds per game last season. But Beasley sees that as a natural product of his role.
"I could do that here," he said at the NBA summer league in Las Vegas, where he played for the Houston Rockets. "It's just playing the game -- being aggressive, taking the right shots, shooting efficiently. It would be the same thing if I was here and my team was giving me the ball all 48 minutes of the game."
Right away, Beasley identified the biggest differences between CBA and NBA stats: the playing time imported players get (16 CBA players, including Yi, averaged more minutes per game than NBA leader James Harden last season) and the way they're fed the ball and asked to create offense.
From a statistical standpoint, the largest decline that players see from the CBA to the NBA is in their usage rate -- the percentage of their team's plays they finish by attempting a shot, making a trip to the free throw line or turning the ball over. On average, players' usage rates drop by nearly 40 percent coming from the CBA to the NBA. By contrast, players in European leagues (with fewer restrictions on international imports) see their usage rates decline by less than 20 percent.
All those shots mean a lot of points -- and that's just the way most CBA teams like it.
Pressure to produce
With the exception of the Guangdong Southern Tigers, who rely on the homegrown Yi for their scoring, few CBA teams are looking abroad for players to fill roles. They want stars who will put up numbers, and won't hesitate to replace them if they don't produce. Beasley doesn't feel that pressure now, though he did when he originally moved to China in 2014.
"You do at first, because you always go into a situation and you're nervous," Beasley said. "You don't want anybody to think you actually suck. But everything just comes in the flow.
"The first couple of games will be the worst games you feel like you've ever played, and you'll still finish with 25 to 35. Maybe you didn't shoot as well, the ball is different, the physicality of the game, the refs are different. But after a while, one, two, three games, the game is the same, the IQ is the same, just let the talent take over."
For other players, however, the need to produce results and the heavy minutes take a toll on defensive effort, making it easy for American players to perform well offensively against their counterparts.
Let's get physical
The biggest thing players cite about the adjustment from the NBA to the CBA is the level of physicality that's allowed.
"Man, it's phy-si-cal," said Beasley, pausing for emphasis on each syllable. "Like literally. You get knocked out of bounds and just get back on defense. It's frustrating at first, but once you get used to it, the physicality will actually make you a better player. You finish through a lot of fouls. Guys like me who come back, you know how to play through the whistle. That's four to five extra points a game."
Denver Nuggets guard Emmanuel Mudiay, who played in the CBA before entering the 2015 NBA draft and getting taken seventh overall, also saw the amount of contact as one of the biggest differences between China and the NBA.
"The physicality, that's definitely the most different, and the athleticism," Mudiay said. "The athleticism in the NBA is on an elite scale. There's not as athletic over there in the CBA, but the CBA, they play real smart and they're physical. I think athleticism and physicality is the difference."
Making the translation
Beasley thinks the big stats American players put up in the CBA offer a misleading picture of the level of play in China.
"That's the misconception a lot of people get," he said. "NBA guys go to China and average big numbers and automatically you think the talent is not as good. It isn't, but it's not that far off."
The CBA is unique among international leagues outside the top tier in Europe in that players see their shooting percentages decline relatively little going to the NBA because of how many shots they're attempting in China.
Overall, my Chinese translations suggest that players' per-minute scoring drops off nearly by half going to the NBA, while rebounding (26 percent) and assists (15 percent) per minute see smaller declines. Beasley's 2015-16 CBA stat line translated to 16.6 points and 9.4 rebounds per 36 minutes -- slightly fewer points than Beasley has actually averaged per 36 minutes in his NBA career (19.2) but more rebounds than his career 7.2 per 36 minutes.
So once you understand the context of CBA stats compared to their NBA equivalents, they don't look so crazy after all.