Tsengian Basketball Association

The Tsengian Basketball Association (Chinese: 曾島男子籃球職業聯賽), commonly abbreviated as TBA, is the first-tier professional men's basketball league in Tseng.

The league is commonly known by fans as the TBA, and this acronym is even used in the Tsengian media and basketball fandom on a regular basis. The TBA should not be confused with the Tsengian Basketball League, the organising body who also organises the minor leagues that led to the TBA, including the TBL First Division. There is also a Women's Tsengian Basketball Association (WTBA).

A number of internationally-successful Tsengian players competed in the TBA in their early career, including Chai Hongmin, Tommy Meng, Yun Guoqiang, Tuo Zurong, Yan Jingtian, Pierre Raimond, Yun Siwei and Eduard Tang-tsu.

The TBA limits the amount of foreign-born players on teams. Notable imports include former players Joshua Landry, Wayne Thurgood, Corey Havlik, Israel Porter, Isaiah Michaels and Tom Groenewald, former  players Xian Xizhi, Cheng Zhongyi, Ao Weiguo, Lu Dazhi, Feng Juncheng and Tuo Wenzhe, and  veterans Eduardas Miškinis and Itai Yardin.

History
Prior to the TBA, basketball was considered to be an amateur sport, although it was gaining in popularity by the late-1970s as TBS-2 began broadcast (NBA) games on tape delay. The Tsengian Basketball League (TBL) organized several minor leagues across Tseng, including the TBL First Division.

By the early-to-mid-1980s, basketball had become a craze in the country, thanks to the help of Tseng 4 taking over the Tsengian TV rights to the NBA upon launch, and was further amplified after the Tseng Republic qualified for the, the first time in history. However, Tseng placed last, losing all games by a heavy margin. As a result, the TBL executives decided to establish a professional basketball league to improve the country's play.

The TBA was founded in 1986 and began play in the 1986–87 season. Early teams in the TBA were usually university teams, such as from the Huang-li University, Université Bonaparte-Mériot, and the University of Georgeville, which already fielded basketball teams since the 1960s and 1970s, and had won several championships in the amateur era. However, they were quickly overtaken as new teams were created.

The first foreigner to play on a TBA team was Japanese Daizō Yamazaki, who played on CB Bonaparte-Mériot for the last five games of the inaugural 1986–87 season.

However, the first foreigner to gain significant attention was American Joshua Landry, who signed with the Kuang Motors Seals midway through the 1989–90 season. An immensely popular player who led the Seals to many championships, he helped lay the foundations for many imports from the United States to follow in the ensuing years.