Will KBL Finals return for Ulsan Mobis and Lee Dae-Sung lead to FIBA Asia Champions Cup berth?

ULSAN (Korea) - Ulsan Hyundai Mobis are by far the most successful club in Korean Basketball League (KBL) history. The storied franchise has 9 finals appearances which has resulted in 6 championships, including the only three-peat in league history from 2013 to 2015. However, Ulsan has yet to have even returned to the KBL finals for the past three years ever since.

After winning the regular season title and beating Jeonju KCC Egis in the semi-finals 3-1, Ulsan have finally broken the dry spell and are heading back to the finals once again.

“It was a pleasure to play with great teammates and win the regular season,” expresses star guard Lee Dae-Sung. “If I wasn’t injured, I think we would have had a better record but still, it was a great season for me and for everybody in Mobis.”

Ulsan finished the season with a 43-11 record, which was just one win short of tying the KBL’s all-time record for wins claimed in a season. The fact that Lee says Ulsan could have had a better record if he wasn’t injured means that they were on track to be the “Best team ever in KBL history”, a tag some media outlets placed on the team in the preseason.

A star-studded back court of Lee, Ham Ji-Hoon, and Yang Dong-Geun, along with naturalized Korean Ra Guna led to the inevitable expectation at the highest level for the team. They’ve succeeded in reaching those projections so far and all that’s keeping them from achieving their ultimate goal might be a familiar face: themselves.

“I believe our team can achieve many things but at the same time [we must] be humble, stay low and the enemy is not the players on the other side,” Lee says. “It might be us. So that is why I believe we should concentrate more on ourselves.”

Lee Dae-Sung is a big part - arguably the biggest part - of Ulsan reaching to their heights this season. Injuries have slowed him down earlier in his career, but he’s been relatively healthy this year and the results have been spectacular. Soon to be 29 years old, Lee put up 14.1 points, 2.8 rebounds, 3.6 assists, and 1.5 steals per game this season. His impressive form coupled with the team’s dominance led him to be among the league’s top MVP candidates at the season’s end. Lee’s blitzing speed and sweet stroke has always allowed him to be a skilled scorer, but it is the other facets of the game where he has improved that has led to his top-notch play.

“I got more adapted to the team system of basketball and controlling my tempo of the game,” Lee shares.

A large factor of Lee’s improvement could be from his stint in the NBA G-League with the Erie Bayhawks in late 2017. He was drafted with the 20^th pick in the first round of the G-League draft and was able to absorb the experience of playing at a higher level before eventually returning to play with Ulsan that season.

 

“I felt my needs to improve on many things while I was in the G-League, and going up against high classed players made me feel that I needed to train more,” says Lee, who also goes by Dash among his friends as a phonetic twist from his first name. “For me, the NBA was a big dream and it seemed to be untouchable until one of my teammates got called up. I recognized it was not just a dream but something people could really go up for and challenge.”

Now in his 5^th KBL season, the challenge for Lee is to get Ulsan their first title in 4 years. He was a key part in back-to-back championship runs in 2014 and 2015 and is now a featured star on a team trying to dominate in the updated world of modern basketball.

“The most important thing to turn around for this team is following and playing so called today’s basketball. Lately the trend of basketball has emphasized more on offence than defense. We were already very good defensive team but made the change from the last three years and made it ours,” Lee says.

Ulsan had the league’s worst offense in terms of points per game from '15-'16 to '16-'17. They moved up to 4^th place last season and finally made the leap to first place this season with an average of 87.6 points per contest. Moreover, they are scoring efficiently, being the only team hovering around 50 percent field goal shooting throughout the regular season. There’s no doubt that offense has been key for the team dubbed as one of the best in KBL history and that Lee Dae-Sung is one of the most important catalysts for the uprising.

Ulsan and Lee are only a few games away from returning the KBL trophy to their franchise. If they do so, they qualify for the FIBA Asia Champions Cup 2019 and get a chance to further extend their glory. Last season KBL Champions, Seoul SK Knights, went all the way to win 3^rd place after battling with some of the finest clubs in Asia. If they make it, could Ulsan get even further?

“It would be exciting and an honor to play in the FIBA Asia Champions Cup and make Mobis the best team in Asia,” Lee says. “I hope this will be that year.”

FIBA