Here in the Middle Kingdom, the CBA is on hold due to the Chinese New Year. Yet come Sunday, the league enters its critical phase and with the interest generated by the likes of JR Smith, Wilson Chandler and Stephon Marbury, the final few regular season games are going to attract a huge amount of attention.

Smith is a very big deal out here and the American has been leisurely posturing his way through the league since it began in November. He is currently averaging 33.8ppg and is a lock for the upcoming CBA All-Star game in late-February. He has obviously got up to some mischief since he arrived in Yiwi; first he went AWOL at the beginning of the season to see a physio in Beijing and since then, he has had more than one heated blow-us with opposition players.

By and large though, Chinese basketball is enjoying its fling with Smith, primarily because he gives the fans what they want, namely thunderous dunks, and lots of them (it should be noted that ‘Dunks’ are an official stat on Chinese box scores).

Yet if Smith is popular, then Stephon Marbury is worshipped. Starbury, having moved to the Beijing Ducks this season, is indisputably the face of the league. He is cheered in every arena he plays at and beyond his star appeal and his canny, constant use of the Chinese hybrid of twitter and facebook, Weibo, the former Knick has turned in some seriously big games. Last week, he put up a triple-double (45 pt, 12 rbd, 10 ast) against Smith’s Zhejiang Bulls side as the team from the capital won 102-93 and remained second in the league behind the current champions, Guangdong Tigers.

The Tigers, currently helmed by Aaron Brooks, are odds-on favourites to record their sixth title in-a-row and draw level with the Bayi Rockets who have won the CBA eight times in their history. Guangdong are looking tidy on both sides of the court, have a deep roster of home grown players like Zhu Fangyu and Wang Shipeng and it would take something special and probably illegal to stop the champions from notching up a sixth title. The reason is quite simple- their Chinese guys are man for man better than those on other CBA teams and that’s often the deciding factor when two good teams play each other.

Elsewhere in the league, Wilson Chandler and his hulking sidekick, PJ Ramos, are the cornerstones of a Guangsha Lions side that are currently going through a losing streak which aptly demonstrates how a team’s fortunes can change suddenly. The Lions have relied on their two overseas players too heavily, leaving former Lakers coach, Jim Cleamons, with a race against time to end a five-game losing streak and steady the ship before the playoffs.

The side from Hangzhou should make it into the post season but unless their Chinese players not called Jin Lipeng find some form and soon, Guangsha will struggle in the playoffs against anyone who can hassle Ramos and keep Chandler from getting any momentum.

The fight for the playoffs as the league drifts into the final-third of its schedule is a frenzied scramble. Guangdong and Beijing should be fine for the top two seeds but after that, everything is up for grabs and teams as low as eleventh place can consider themselves in the hunt for a playoff spot. Guangsha should make it, as should the Shanxi Dragons, led by the ludicrously dangerous (by CBA standards) duo of Charles Gaines and Marcus Williams.

My team, the Shanghai Sharks, have a legitimate chance of making it into the post season, which would an impressive achievement for a young team that have been lead superbly by former Houston forward, Mike Harris, and Chinese national team captain, Liu Wei.

However, the Xinjiang Tigers, who splashed the cash to acquire Kenyon Martin and Kyle Mills in the preseason, might not even make the next phase after K-Mart bought out his contract and the Australian was sacked following an argument about the guard’s hamstring injury. Their replacements, Tim Pickett and Gani Lawal, might have the stuff to help Menke Baater and co. over the line, but this season has already been a disaster for perennial finalists.

A post-season scramble is beckoning in China and no one is quite sure how it will end. An already chaotic CBA season should have a few more big games and noteworthy incidents to talk about before the quarter-finals begin in late-February.