About

The Shanghai Sharks are a professional Chinese basketball team in the CBA that became known in memes on NBA Twitter when NBA players who were bad or played poorly in a specific game were imagined to be drafted and scouted by the Sharks, as in, they were going to be out of the league and dropped by their team. The memes mostly centered on two players. The first was Ben Simmons in 2021 and then, more notably, Memphis Grizzlies player Dillon Brooks in 2023 after the Grizzlies were eliminated by the L.A. Lakers in the 2023 NBA playoffs. Shanghai Sharks memes were often used in conjunction with the Get Ready to Learn Chinese, Buddy meme.

Origin

The Shanghai Sharks are a basketball team in China's CBA league, founded in the year 1996.^[1] The team started to be referenced in online, basketball discourse in the 2010s when ex-NBA players signed with the team. Announcements of the player trades went viral on Twitter, such as in a tweet^[2] from Adrian Wojnarowski sent on October 9th, 2014 about Michael Beasley signing with the team. In August 2016, former NBA player Jimmer Fredette was discussed on Twitter^[3] for being signed by the Shanghai Sharks. He later made Twitter^[4] headlines in 2016 for scoring 37 points against the Houston Rockets in a cross-league matchup.

Memes about the Shanghai Sharks stemmed from the aforementioned notoriety of the team among NBA fans online. On July 23rd, 2018, Twitter^[5] user @steven_lebron tweeted the first-known, viral tweet about the Sharks that made fun of an NBA player in tow. The tweet referenced NBA player Dwight Howard and joked about him hoping around the CBA, starting with the Sharks. Over the course of five years, the tweet gained roughly 2,100 likes (shown below).

Spread

Going into the 2020s, Shanghai Shark memes became more commonplace online. For instance, on April 5th, 2021, Twitter^[6] user @mldiffley tweeted a photo of Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal with the caption, "Drew Timme and Corey Kispert on the Shanghai Sharks in 2025," gaining roughly 2,400 likes in two years (shown below, left). After the 2021 NBA playoffs, Shanghai Sharks memes appeared en masse, for instance, on May 21st, 2021, Twitter^[7] user @CrypticNoHoes tweeted, "DRAYMOND GREEN WILL BE PLAYING FOR THE SHANGHAI SHARKS NEXT YEAR," gaining roughly 10,200 likes in two years (shown below, right).

Bens Simmons on the Shanghai Sharks

On June 21st, 2021, Twitter^[8] user @GoldieOnSports tweeted a screenshot of the Shanghai Sharks Wikipedia page in which someone had added then-Philadelpia 76ers player Ben Simmons to the Sharks' roster (shown below, left). @GoldieOnSports' tweet popularized the gag on Wikipedia, and over the course of two years, it received roughly 23,200 likes (shown below, right).

More elaborate Shanghai Sharks memes that referenced Simmons spread online following the 2021 NBA playoffs. For instance, on June 20th, 2021, Instagram^[9] user @hoodiemelo posted a parody infographic showing what they imagined to be the Sharks' upcoming roster, consisting of other NBA players that performed poorly in the playoffs, including Joe Harris, Kyle Kuzma, Kristaps Porzingis and Rudy Gobert. The post gained roughly 17,200 likes in two years (shown below). It was also used in memes on Twitter.^[10]

Dillon Brooks Shanghai Sharks Memes

During the 2022-2023 NBA regular season, Memphis Grizzlies player Dillon Brooks was a viral topic within NBA-related online discourse.^[11] In late April 2023, the Memphis Grizzlies played the lower-seeded L.A. Lakers in the first round of the NBA playoffs. The event caused a surge in Dillon Brooks memes that imagined him signing with the Shanghai Sharks. For instance, an early example that inspired a predominant amount of the later discourse was a video posted by TikToker^[12] @gavinmchughh on April 29th, 2023, in which he was "chirping" Dillon Brooks during pregame, calling him "Shanghai Shark Brooks." The video gained roughly 3 million plays and 351,700 likes in four days (shown below).

On April 28th, 2023, the Grizzlies were eliminated from the playoffs by the L.A. Lakers.^[13] The event caused more Dillon Brooks memes about him going to the Shanghai Sharks. For instance, on April 29th, 2023, the Twitter^[14] account tweeted a photo of Dillon Brooks in a Shanghai Sharks jersey, gaining roughly 2,000 likes in four days (shown below, left). On May 2nd, 2023, Instagram^[15] user @nbaworldwidecoverage tweeted an updated, parody roster for the Sharks, gaining roughly 2,700 likes in one day (shown below, right).

More Dillon Brooks and Shanghai Sharks-related memes appeared on Facebook^[16] and Reddit.^[17]

Related Memes

Get Ready to Learn Chinese, Buddy

Get Ready to Learn Chinese, Buddy is an image macro of the NBA commissioner Adam Silver captioned with a fake quote of him saying, "Get ready to learn Chinese buddy" to the NBA player Kyrie Irving soon after his antisemitic controversy. First posted in November 2022, the meme format gained virality online as a joke threat to sports players who have been performing poorly or failed in other ways. The macro implies that due to their performance, a player doesn't belong in a top-tier competition and should instead be playing in a lower-tier league, such as China's CBA.

Various Examples

Dillon Brooks' opening speech with the Shanghai Sharks: pic.twitter.com/9px257Iq4k

— Majin (@UPWESTZOOTED) May 2, 2023

A day in the life of a graphic designer for the Shanghai Sharks 🦈 pic.twitter.com/oR96t3sfod

— Playmaker (@playmaker) May 2, 2023

Search Interest

External References