Former Hornets Lottery Pick Noah Vonleh Suffers Nightmare Ordeal Playing In China

Fake contracts, suspensions and people breaking and entering, this is wild.

Noah Vonleh Suffers Nightmare Ordeal / NITISH SINGH - Pink Villa

The Charlotte Hornets selected Noah Vonleh with the 9th pick in the 2014 draft. After a slow start to his rookie season, he was moved to Portland as part of the Nicholas Batum trade. Vonleh never managed to hold down a secure spot in the NBA despite stops in New York, Chicago, Minnesota, Denver and Brooklyn. In 2021 he decided to play overseas and sign with the Shanghai Sharks.

In late June 2024, Vonleh posted on his Instagram account revealing a worrying and bizarre experience of playing overseas which you can read below.

“Smh it was a crazy year playing in China! Shanghai Sharks by far worst organization l've ever been a part of…Very unprofessional. They still owe me my playoff bonus from 21/22 season. They also still owe me the remaining balance of my salary for the 23/24 season.

“I was dealing with an injury during the season and it was taking longer than expected for me return. The Sharks tried to rush me back many times and told team doctors and doctors outside of the team to lie to me and tell me l'm ok to play. I sent my MRI results to doctors in the states and they had different opinions and confirmed I wasn't ready to return to play. Because the injury was taking too long the Sharks were trying to find ways to terminate my contract on a fully guaranteed deal. They wrongfully terminated the contract on February 26th, 2024.

“They started off sending out warnings to my Chinese agents saying I wasnt showing up to practice. Chinese agents never responded to any of the warnings when I told them to. After the third warning the Sharks sent the agents a termination notice. The Sharks called board members from the CBA office to come in and investigate to see if their claims to terminate were valid. The league saw based off of security footage they were wrong and should of never terminated the contract. I was present at practice everyday.”

“After my contract was wrongfully terminated, CBA All Star weekend was a couple days away. I decided it was a good idea to go. The general manager of the Sharks was informed I was gonna be attending and was nervous and scared of what could happen. He called for a meeting at the All Star Hotel to try and get me back to the team, but the terms he presented were not in my best interest. He wanted to fly back to Shanghai together and go back with this Kumbaya story like everything was all good but I wasn't with it.”

“In March the third and final stage of the season begins. I'm asking for meetings with the team to figure out how to get my remaining salary since I'm on a fully guaranteed deal and they no longer want me on team. I want all my money since I'm on a fully guaranteed contract, but know based off my previous experience they're gonna be on some BS and not give everything so I decide l'll take a bit less. They declined the requests for meetings and always have excuses for why. I told them many times I want to handle it peacefully and we can go our separate ways but they didn't want to. I goto a couple games and the fans and everyone is wondering what is going on because they don't want to release a statement on the situation after the league told them they have no right to do what they are trying to do such as terminating the contract and issuing unnecessary fines. “

“I get back to the hotel after attending one of the games. Now the General manager wants to have my room canceled. The general manager tells the hotel to send people to my room to force me out of there. There's six people coming to my room trying to break in and grab me out the room.
“They using weapons to try and break in and threatening me saying all kind of things.

“This what they was using to enter while was sleep. Put this thru the peep hole... snatched it when I heard the noise at the door”

A truly remarkable story. We can only hope Vonleh receives the payment he is owed and the individuals involved are held to account. I think it's safe to say there won't be many NBA players lining up to play for the Shanghai Sharks next season.