Fubon Braves P. Leage + The Undisputed Champion of the New Year

After 20 years of silence in Taiwan's professional basketball environment, in the second half of 2020, with the determined action of Blackie Chen, the Taiwan Basketball Professional League P. Leage+, or PLG for short, was established. In its first season, it gathered four teams, namely the Fubon Braves, Formosa Dreamers, Taoyuan Pilot, and Hsinchu Lioneers, and made a brand-new impact on the basketball fans all over Taiwan; although the championship game was postponed indefinitely after four battles because of the epidemic, the league finally ruled that the Fubon Braves won the annual PLG championship for the first season. Although due to the epidemic, the first season championship was postponed indefinitely after four games, and the league finally ruled that the Fubon Braves won the first season PLG championship, there was not too much controversy over the result because the Fubon Braves are probably the most complete and strongest team in Taiwan, regardless of the league.

Challenging the SBL with a stunning first season

In 2014, Fubon purchased 台灣大籃球育樂 and announced its entry into the Taiwan basketball scene, changing the team name to "Fubon Braves" with a brand new image and team name to welcome the 12th season of the SBL Super Basketball League, and hiring Otis Hughley, a foreign coach who once served on the Chinese men's representative team, to be the head coach of the inaugural season, and paying off a 19-11 victory and second-place loss to Taiwan Beer in the first season. Although the team lost to Taiwan Beer 1-4 in the playoffs, it is a great blessing for Taiwan basketball fans to have such a strong company as Fubon in their business, both for the players and fans.

Fubon Braves in the investment in the management of the team is very complete, from the heavy investment and domestic well-known sports design company to create a complete visual team, including the team cheerleaders, back-up team, etc., almost can be said to be in place at one time, for the players to take care of the meticulous care of the future attraction of free players to join the role of a decisive decision.

The thorny road to the team's first-ever championship

For Fubon, the priority was to win its first title since changing its name to Braves, but it wasn't an easy road. After its first season, the team parted ways with foreign coach Ortiz, and retired Chinese basketball star Johnny Yen took over the reins, but the team lost in the playoffs two years in a row, both times at the hands of the Puyuan, and the plight of the team led to a decision to hire former CBA head coach Hsu Jinzhe, the former head coach of Team Chinese Taipei, for the 15th season of the SBL the next year to put together the last piece of the puzzle to challenge for the team's first-ever championship. Hsu Jinzhe was developing in the CBA at that time, and he led the national team to a classic win over China in 2013. In the first year of their return to Taiwan, the Fubon Braves entered the championship game as they had hoped, and although they lost the series of matches to the Puyuan, 2-4, the style of team basketball and all the members of the team, which was practiced by Coach Hsu Jinzhe, had gradually changed this team. The next season, the 16th season of the SBL, the team won first place in the league's regular season with a record of 24 wins and 12 losses, and eliminated Yulon Luxgen in the first round of the playoffs, 4-2. In the championship game, the team even demonstrated strong offensive and defensive strengths, and swept Taiwan Beer in four games to win the long-awaited annual championship. And the thorny road of chasing the top has finally concluded.

Get out of the comfort zone and challenge the cross-border alliance ABL

After winning the championship in the fifth season of the SBL, Taiwan's basketball industry has been experiencing dramatic fluctuations, and professionalization has continued to intensify. Both the general environment and the fans hope that the professionalization of basketball can increase the overall activity of the industry, and for Fubon, which has been investing all of its resources in the past five years, this is the direction in which the team would like to go. The "home and away" system is the next model that Fubon hopes to challenge in the operation of the team, to put down roots and recognition in the local community, and to find commercial possibilities for basketball. However, the CBL, the official team that prepared the league at the time, believed that the environment did not yet have the capability of home and away, so they did not consider such a development route, and hoped to wait until the league had stabilized and developed to consider this kind of system; as a result, the Fubon Braves made a decision that shook up the basketball world of Taiwan in 2019, and the Fubon Braves has proved their strength. The Fubon Braves, having proven their strength, have decided to leave the SBL, which seems to be a "comfort zone" league, and join the ABL to start a new chapter with the Taipei HePing Basketball Arena as their home court.

PLG first season champions, Taiwan's deepest professional team

In the 2019-20 season, the ABL announced an indefinite suspension before the end of the season due to the global epidemic of the Covid 19, and it is not known if the league will resume play in the future; two teams in Taiwan will challenge the ABL, the Fubon Braves of Taipei and the Formosa Dreamers of Changhua; these two teams are also responding to the establishment of a new league, the P.+League, which is being pushed forward to 2020 and joining it. The Fubon Braves has experienced the SBL championship in the ABL International League, and not only have a complete lineup and deep strength, but also have experienced players such as Lin Zhijie and Tseng Wending who have returned to Taiwan from the CBA, as well as experienced national players Tsai Wencheng and Chang Tsung-hsien, etc., which are superb in terms of both star power and strength, and the team opened the new season with 6 consecutive victories. Off the court, ticket sales and peripheral sales are also among the best in the league. Although Fubon suffered a series of defeats in the second half of the season, under head coach Hsu Chun-chieh's skillful planning, Fubon was able to make quick adjustments and find the best conditions to face the battle.

At the end of the regular season, Fubon entered the championship series as the top team in the league and waited for the arrival of the challenger, Taiwan New Dreamers. At the end of the first four battles, Fubon gained an absolute hearing advantage of 3-1, which coincidentally coincided with the aggravation of Taiwan's epidemic, and the whole of Taiwan went into the third level of alert, so it was not possible to finish the championship series and finally, the alliance ruled that the PLG champion for the first year of PLG. For this, both the other teams and the fans can accept this result, so the power of Fubon Warriors is undoubted.

This is the establishment of a professional league in Taiwan in the past 20 years, Fubon Warriors first season of strong performance on and off the court not only proved their own strong ability, the overall operation of the business model of Taiwan's basketball can almost become the league's benchmark, the king not only exists on the court, any field can prove their own ability, undoubtedly is the history of Taiwan's basketball, the most successful story.