Help for NBA playoff teams could be found in an unlikely spot

The Minnesota Timberwolves' Karl-Anthony Towns is injured, and whether he makes it back for the playoffs is uncertain. The Boston Celtics' Kristaps Porzingis has a hamstring injury that can take a long time to heal. The Brooklyn Nets' Ben Simmons is out for the season, but a play-in spot for the Nets is not out of the question. 

Injuries to such key players can be overcome, as we learned last season with the likes of bench-warmers Gabe Vincent and Cale Martin, who stepped in for starters for the Miami Heat during the postseason. 

But pulling from the end of the bench is not the only solution. There are legions of Americans playing in China who longtime observers of the Association, especially in the recruiting ranks, will recognize. 

And because the Chinese regular season ends at roughly the same time as the NBA regular season, one or two astute NBA teams could pluck a player from China for the postseason. 

The Los Angeles Clippers did this with Lester Hudson nine years ago, when he was the two-time reigning Player of the Year in China. 

So, who is making noise in China?

• Trae Golden is playing for the Sichuan Blue Whales, who are last in the 20-team league. But he leads the CBA in scoring at 33.3 points per game and had a high game of 49 points earlier this season. Golden, a 6-foot-2 point guard who played at Tennessee and Georgia Tech, also made professional stops in Turkey, Russia and France after going undrafted in 2014.
• Antonio Blakeney, a New York City product who attended LSU and went undrafted in 2017, won the G League Rookie of the Year award with the Windy City Bulls and played briefly for the Chicago Bulls from 2017-19. He then played in Bahrain and Israel before moving to China in 2022. He is second in the league in scoring (30.2 PPG) for the Nanjing Tongxi Monkey Kings, who are on the playoff bubble in 14th place in a league in which 12 teams make the playoffs.
• QJ Peterson, who played at VMI, averages 29.6 points for the Jilin Northeast Tigers, who are going to miss the playoffs.

But what about other specialists?

Every team needs a lockdown defender, as Patrick Beverley, P.J. Tucker, Jose Alvarado and Jrue Holiday will attest. 

In the CBA, Kahlil Felder of the Beijing Royal Fighters is second in the league with 2.2 steals per game. He's only 5-foot-9, which usually works against Americans playing overseas. But in a Game 7 when a stop or a steal is needed in the NBA, sometimes you can reach down to the end of the bench and pick out an unheralded player to make things happen.

Rebounding is important, too, and the league leader in the CBA is Scottie James Jr., a former Liberty standout from Warsaw, Ind. The 6-foot-8 forward is averaging a league-leading 13.1 boards for the Tianjin Pioneers, a bubble team sitting right behind Shanxin. And, hey, it never hurts to have a guy names James on your playoff roster.

Plucking players out of China as an emergency replacement in the postseason is not common in Adam Silver's league, but NBA teams employ massive scouting staffs. 

And one of these days a player brought in from continent other than Europe might not be the worst idea in the history of ideas.