Professional Basketball Championship Game 'Busan Derby'

The Busan Derby, the championship game of professional basketball, will be held in Busan.

Suwon KT, the third-ranked team in the regular season, will face Busan KCC, the fifth-ranked team, in the first round of the 2023-24 season in the KT Sonic Boom Arena in Suwon at 2 p.m. on the 27th.

The importance of the first round of the best-of-seven championship cannot be overemphasized. KT is one of three teams, along with LG and Korea Gas Corporation, that has never won a championship. KCC is the first No. 5 seed in the history of professional basketball to reach the championship.

Coincidentally, both teams have strong ties to Busan. KT was based in Busan from 2004 to 2021, when it was known as KTF, and won its first regular season title in 2010-11 with a 41-13 record under head coach Jeon Chang-jin. One of the players who helped the team win the title was Song Young-jin.

It was the last time a professional team with ties to Busan won the title. The last time a professional soccer team with a connection to Busan won the championship was in 1997, when the Busan Daegu Royals won the title. 토토사이트 Busan I-Park is in third place in the K League 2, the second division. The last time Lotte won a professional baseball championship was in 1992. Lotte is in last place this season.

KT eventually left for Suwon in 2021 after failing to bring a championship to Busan. Busan, South Korea"s second largest city, lost its professional basketball team. Fans were outraged. It was a huge loss for the marketability and symbolism of professional basketball as a whole.

Kia Enterprises, the original championship team, was based in Busan, but the team moved to Ulsan when it was rebranded as Hyundai Mobis. Busan fans repeated the painful memory of losing a professional basketball team.

KCC moved to Busan, which had been without a men's professional basketball team for a while, before this season. KCC, which was in conflict with Jeonju City over the construction of a new gymnasium, suddenly announced its move to Busan. This time, Jeonju fans who had supported KCC for 22 years were outraged. Jeonju, the KBL's most popular city, lost its team.

After KT left, Busan fans who said they would not watch basketball began to give KCC their hearts. KCC, which formed a "super team" with Heo Woong, Choi Jun-yong, Lee Seung-hyun, Song Kyo-chang, and Ra Gun-ah, performed well at the box office.

Eventually, KCC, which had risen from the bottom of the regular season, started winning in the quarterfinals of the playoffs. KCC swept the fourth-ranked SK with three wins and an average margin of victory of 21.7 points in three games. In the quarterfinals, KCC finished with a 3-1 record, with only one loss to regular season champion DB. The margin of victory in the three games was a whopping 17 points.

Will Busan fans cheer for KT, who still has a lot of resentment, or KCC, who has begun to show newfound love for the team? Can Sajik Indoor Stadium, the largest in Korea with 14,000 seats, be filled with basketball fans?