Lee Jin-Sung

Lee Jin-Sung
(Black Bear, F)
ID# 758

Drawn by Ada
No. 31 – Retired
Position	Forward
Species	Black Bear ( Ursidae )
Gender	Male
Nickname(s)
Big Fish
Personal information
Born	(1989-11-23) November 23, 1989 Incheon, South Korea
Nationality	South Korean
Listed height	6 ft 6 in (1.98 m)
Listed weight	216 lb (98 kg)
Shoots	Right
Career information
School	Mani University
FBA draft	2014 / Undrafted
Pro playing career	2014–2023
Career history
2014-2015	Albany Alphas
2015-2023	Santa Ana Spectrums
Contract information
Contract year	2021
Player Contacts
(IC) Agent	Unknown
(OOC) Creator	MW
(OOC) Actor	Unknown
(OOC) Usage	Ask me before any use

Lee Jin-Sung is a Korean black bear forward currently playing for the Santa Ana Spectrums of the Furry Basketball Association (FBA). .

Biography

Born on November 23, 1989, Lee Jin-Sung initially started basketball as a part of his elementary school's physical education curriculum, but he quickly became a fan of the sport and continued playing it after school even after the curriculum moved on to other sports. Around the same time, he started following the FBA and the Korean Furry Basketball League (KFBL), and upon finding out no Korean had ever gone from the KFBL directly to the FBA, he aspired to be the first Korean to do so.

He quickly found out that his taller height, while giving him a clear advantage over his friends, also made him a little less nimble and quite susceptible to steals. Given that he was often the "best" player on the team because of his height, his coaches took notice of him and helped him to refine his shooting and ball handling techniques to make sure that he improved on his weak points, after hearing his own concerns.

Standing 6' 2" by high school and 6' 5" by his freshman year in college, he was often used as a power forward or even as a center by his coaches as he was one of the tallest players in his school teams, despite him feeling more comfortable in the number three or number two slots. He eventually became a bit too tall to play shooting guard, though, and while his primary position is still small forward, he is now more accustomed to playing power forward than shooting guard.

While his jump shots are mainly his bread-and-butter now thanks to rigorous shot practice drills while growing up, his stellar height and athleticism among his peers have allowed him to be the focus of more physical plays in KFBL games, and he has usually been able to stand his ground against the foreign bigfurs in the league. But while he has been called "explosive", "powerful", and "a great jumper" by Korean standards, he has sometimes been criticized about whether his physique or endurance would be able to stand up to against FBA players, and some of his teammates have accused him of being a ball hog during games.

After a stellar showing at the college leagues despite playing "out of position" quite often, he was drafted after his senior year as the #1 pick in the KFBL draft by the Seoul Nimbus without any hesitation. In his first two years as a KFBL player, he took the league by storm, being able to play in his comfortable position as a small forward thanks to the foreign bigfurs on the team filling in for power forward and center, and brought the team to the league title in his second year, which was his final year of his rookie contract. Speculation was rife if he would make the big jump to the FBA after the season, and at a press conference only a few days after the season ended, he finally made his intentions clear: "I feel like now is the time to take my game to the next level. I'm declaring for the FBA draft."

He is generally an amiable bear out of court, and while sometimes his tendencies to be "easily forgiving" slip into him being seen as a pushover, he is also very stubborn with matters he has a conviction that he is correct, which is how he was able to play as a small forward for at least half of his matches during his school days. He got his nickname from a reporter describing him as a "big fish in a little pond" making it into a news article that listed promising Korean basketball prospects, which stuck after a photo (he himself still insists it was photoshopped) of him in a fish mask during his college festival went viral on the Internet.

Because of his nationality, he needs to enlist in mandatory military service for two years before he turns 28, at which point he will be forced to enlist; however, if he wins a gold medal for his country in the upcoming 2014 Asian Games in Incheon, Korea (his hometown!) in September, that period can be reduced to six weeks, which can easily be covered in the offseason.

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