Harrell Describes His China Adventure: I Hated Being There

Former NBA player Montrezl Harrell said he struggled greatly due to living conditions, food, and cultural differences while describing his time wearing the Xinjiang Flying Tigers jersey.

Speaking as a guest on the Kowch Potatoes podcast, the 32-year-old player openly said he did not enjoy his roughly two-month experience in China during the 2024-25 season. Harrell said people in China probably hate him, because he describes what he went through there exactly as it was when he returned.

Harrell said the place he was in was not one of the big, busy cities, not Shanghai, Hong Kong or Beijing. He said people smoked in the elevator, stared at him as if he were some kind of experiment, and that he felt far from home because he could not understand what was being said.

Harrell, who also had difficulty with food, said he kept having the team's staff member order from a robot for him. He said a whole fish arrived at the table, with its head and even its eye still on it. He added that he ate fried rice, orange chicken and boiled eggs almost every day.

Harrell played only eight games for the Xinjiang Flying Tigers. The player, who had his best years wearing the Los Angeles Clippers jersey, won the NBA Sixth Man of the Year award in 2020. Over 515 regular season NBA games, Harrell averaged 12.1 points, 5.0 rebounds and 1.3 assists, and in the 2022-23 season he wore the Philadelphia 76ers jersey. Most recently, he competed in the BIG3 organization.