As the new season of the Women's Chinese Basketball Association prepares to tip off, the league is ramping up efforts to produce star players capable of boosting its flagging profile.

The women's game has long craved a new generation of players to fill the shoes of China's 2008 Olympic semifinalists. Two stars of that squad - Miao Lijie and Chen Nan - are the last Chinese to graduate to the US-based professional Women's National Basketball Association.

Team China finished 10th at last year's Rio Olympics, its worst showing at a Games since 1984, underlining the female game's floundering fortunes here.