BASKETBALL/Two Taiwan teams to play in 2024-25 East Asia Super League season

Taipei, April 25 (CNA) The two Taiwanese basketball teams that make it to the 2023-24 season final series of the P.LEAGUE+ (PLG) will secure an East Asia Super League (EASL) slot next season, the international league said Thursday.

The two teams will join their counterparts from the Korean Basketball League (KBL), Japan's B.LEAGUE (BLG) and the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA), according to the EASL, which has kept its qualification criteria the same for the 2024-25 season.

The Busan KCC Egis and Suwon KT Sonicboom have clinched the two berths for South Korea as they head into the KBL finals, the EASL said, adding that the winner of that league will enter Group B while the other will go to Group A.

The 2023-24 PLG regular season is drawing to a close, with each team having six to nine games left.

The Taoyuan Pauian Pilots, now 21-12, are 0.5 games ahead of the 21-13 Formosa Dreamers, who are in second place, followed by the New Taipei Kings (17-15), Hsinchu Toplus Lioneers (16-15), and the three-time defending champions the Taipei Fubon Braves (14-18).

The Kaohsiung 17LIVE Steelers, now sitting at rock bottom with a 9-25 record, have been officially eliminated from the playoffs. Since its establishment in the summer of 2021, the three-year-old franchise remains the only PLG team that has never made it to the playoffs.

With the return of Jeremy Lin (林書豪), the Kings have won two of their recent three games since April 13, after losing four of the previous five games.

Meanwhile, the Lioneers and the Braves are still struggling with the absence of their respective stars -- Oscar Kao (高國豪) and two-time PLG final MVP Michael Singletary.

The Lioneers said on April 20 that Kao would not be able to play for six to eight weeks due to a right ankle injury he sustained in a game with the Steelers on April 13, while Singletary suffered a fibula fracture in his right foot during a game with the Dreamers on Jan. 27 following a collision with the Dreamers big man Brandon Gilbeck.

On Jan. 28, the Braves said that injury would sideline the two-time PLG finals MVP for at least six weeks, but the American small forward has not suited up again since then.

The Braves and the Kings represented the PLG in the 2023-24 EASL season and saw the Kings finish fourth in March following two narrow losses to the BLG's Chiba Jets and the KBL's Anyang Jung Kwan Jang Red Boosters in the semifinal and third-place playoff.

The 2023-24 EASL season marked its inaugural home-and-away season, during which each team hosted each of the other teams in its group and visited their home court once. The top two teams in each group subsequently advanced to the semifinals.

The champions, the Jets, received US$1 million in prize money, while the Seoul SK Knights won US$500,000 for coming runners-up and the Red Boosters got US$250,000 for coming third.