The Z List: Tan Chi Sheng proves that in basketball — and in life — hard work often trumps ‘talent’

Spurred on by Slam Dunk, he dedicated much of his youth to basketball — before venturing into the world of content creation. Meet The Z List 2024, national basketball player and budding content creator Tan Chi Sheng.

In a world of Rukawas and Hanamichis, it pays to be a Miyagi. Or, if you’re not familiar with the legendary sports anime Slam Dunk — or any sports anime for that matter — the common trope is that the resilient, hardworking player in a team often goes overlooked when its more ‘talented’ stars shine. Such is the fate that’s been laid out for Tan Chi Sheng, former captain of the Seremban-based basketball team NS Matrix (now NS Matrix Deers), who led them to national success for five consecutive years.

From the handful of highlight reels I’ve seen, Chi Sheng has a somewhat unassuming presence on the court and in person at first. He’s a bit reserved when I greet him, decidedly out of his element for his first magazine shoot, especially as the face of this year’s The Z List. But when the basketball is in his hands — or in this case, when he’s thrown into the spotlight — he is able to command the room. At once everyone is watching him, awaiting his next move. Whether he’s about to shoot an impressive three-pointer or strike a tricky pose for the camera, Chi Sheng knows how to ‘play the game’, as they say.

It was not LeBron or Michael Jordan or anyone in the NBA that inspired Chi Sheng to pick up basketball seriously, but instead watching Slam Dunk on cable TV with his brother every morning before school. “I didn’t really pay attention at the time because I was really young,” he says, “but after I started playing the sport and fell in love with it, I watched the anime again… and then I really fell in love with it. I was like, ‘Okay, I wanna play basketball my whole life.’” (I completely understand the sentiment. Anime has a way of making anything look cool.)

“I kept watching maybe 30 minutes to an hour of basketball highlights every day,” Chi Sheng adds. “I was really in love with the crazy moves that those players did. So I always tried to do a lot of crazy moves myself. And I kept failing, like, I lost the ball every time. But that actually motivated me. I knew that if I did a crazy move without any mistakes, the whole court would be shouting and cheering for me. And I love that feeling.”

An unconditional love of the game

Much like Hanamichi at the start of Slam Dunk, Chi Sheng’s own motivations for joining the basketball team was a little frivolous if not romantic. “I was trying to lose weight and get better-looking so I could get myself a girlfriend,” he says with a sheepish laugh. “I was young lah, I was very young.” (His girlfriend, who plays volleyball, is also an avid Haikyuu!! fan — there seems to be a pattern here.)

Then after dedicating the bulk of his youth to the sport, Chi Sheng eventually found himself taking the mantle of leadership in NS Matrix, along with the dream (and later, reality) of bringing them to the top in the nation. Managing a group of unruly boys fresh out of high school no doubt comes with its set of challenges — but Chi Sheng quickly discovered that he is a natural leader.

“To be honest, I’m not a talented player,” he tells me, and I’m taken aback by his candour. “I’m short, and I wasn’t that great. So I always told myself to work hard to at least help the team. And I learned that my biggest strength is, I always stay positive. With this attitude, even though we faced all kinds of problems on and off the court, we overcame them as a team. I was still learning to be the leader, the captain of the team. But I think as the captain, you just have to be confident that the best players are in your team, and know you are the captain of that team.”

‘Strong’ and ‘talented’ players are so often singled out in the grand scheme of things that it’s easy to forget basketball is a team sport. As long as you’re part of the team, your value is almost always determined by how much you’re able to contribute to it. But creating that chemistry between its players — understanding each other, knowing each other’s strengths and weaknesses — is none other than the captain’s job.

“There are so many ways for everyone to express their mind and feelings,” Chi Sheng muses. “Especially for a bunch of boys like us, staying together for a long time — everybody has a different personality. For sure we had fun, and for sure we had arguments. And it was up to me to get everybody together, to connect everybody and make sure we were all on the same goal. And that’s the reason we could win everything. We were really the best team at the time.”

The flare of pride in his voice is unmissable. Since his debut with NS Matrix, the team has become a consistent champion of the notable Agong Cup and worked its way up the rank in the Major Basketball League (MBL) Malaysia. This is also when I learn that Chi Sheng plays the point guard position — the one who ‘organises’ the whole team and makes sure the ball gets to the right player at the right time on the court.

“I’m the one who tries to understand everybody,” he adds. “What they think, what they’re feeling, why is it they want to do this. And I can always calm everybody down. Basketball is a very rough sport and sometimes you get mad, or you get disappointed when you shoot and miss the basket. I was always there to cheer these kids up. I wanted to be an example for them. Like, if I can do this, then everybody can guide each other.”

Knowing your limits

In Kuroko’s Basketball — another sports anime whose implausibility we both ‘agree to disagree’ about — the theme of burnout in basketball are explored. After five long years of training and working day in, day out, Chi Sheng experienced his first taste of just that. “I actually quit the [NX Matrix] team just this year,” he says, before diving deeper. “And I’ve started doing freelance, so now I’m able to play for any team.”

Chi Sheng’s reason for his departure from the team is not as dramatic as you might think. Despite his fierce love for his teammates, there’s an undertone of restlessness in his voice when he speaks. I’d tried gauging his character a little when he first introduced himself to me (“I’m 23 years old, and I’m a Sagittarius”) and deduced that he’s the kind who prefers his own freedom as opposed to sticking to a very rigid routine.

“As a player with NS Matrix, I felt I was done,” Chi Sheng opens up. “We achieved a lot in that time. The decision is more because I wanted to expose myself as more than just a player, you know? As an athlete, it was just training, rest, then training, every single day. I wanted to spend more time with my family, and my dogs… and explore more of life. Maybe do some modelling, connecting with people. That’s the reason I quit that kind of ‘baller’s life’ lah.”

This deep-set desire to do what he wants had nearly gotten him in trouble once before, and I suspect this could also be part of the reason. “I was born in Selangor, and traditionally I would play for Selangor,” he prefaces. “But then I crossed the state and went to Negeri Sembilan to play for NS Matrix, and I was warned by the Selangor organisation. They were asking me to come back [to Selangor] and threatened to ban me from playing in the National League. But my team did a lot of documentation and everything to make sure that it wouldn’t happen. Luckily I was allowed to play, and in the end we won. We even defeated the Selangor team in the finals.”

Despite his cheeky grin as he tells me this, there’s more to this ‘revenge story’. Things reached a fever pitch when Chi Sheng was slapped with an official letter from the organisation following the match. “I was 17 years old at the time, and the letter stated that until I was 21, I wouldn’t be able to play any games in Selangor,” he shares. “And I think at that moment, I learned that you have to always have the courage to go for whatever that you think is good for you. The journey is already difficult and it has a lot of challenges, so you shouldn’t spend your time and energy listening to other people’s comments. Always choose what is good for you.”

He expresses himself with a level-headedness that only a good captain would have, and through his inspiring speech I can’t help but draw similarities to the ‘senior’ senpai characters of every sports anime I’ve seen, from Haikyuu!! to Run with the Wind. If there’s anything you can take away from them, it’s that strength comes in so many forms than simply being the best player on the court — there’s also strength in knowing your own limitations.

“I think the biggest challenge for me throughout was the travelling,” Chi Sheng opens up. His own skill sets and potential injuries on the court — these are limitations that come with the sport. But in the long run, limitations can take different shapes. “I remember when we had to go to Port Dickson from Cheras and then back. We took a bus, then the LRT, then the KTM, until we arrived in another state. And then right after the match, we had to go straight back home for classes on Monday. It was very tiring. And we were still in school, so we had to decide, ‘Okay, do we want to focus on our studies or chase our dreams?’ A lot of people gave up because maybe they had to focus on their studies and they weren’t able to juggle. That was when I realised, ‘Ah, so this is what we call sacrifice.’ You have to learn to be alone, away from your parents. I think that was the hardest part, and once I overcame it, I believe nothing else can really hurt me in that way.”

Playing at your own pace

Having lived an unchanging routine for five years, Chi Sheng admits he’s still getting used to all of the free time he has now. “I was struggling at first, because it takes a lot of discipline and you really need to be able to manage your time well,” he shares. “When we play basketball with a pro team, the coaches and managers would settle everything for us. We would just wake up and go for training. But now I have to figure it out and manage everything alone. I have to wake up and actually think about what to do for the next week or so. It’s a process lah.”

Since his departure from NS Matrix, Chi Sheng has dabbled in content creation and social media management. Basketball is still his whole life — in fact, wanting to popularise the sport is what spurred on this venture in the first place. “As an athlete, I think one of the biggest problems is that most of us don’t know how to build our profiles,” he says, “on social media and also our ‘image’ in real life. So I’m currently working in my own micro-social media agency, mainly to connect athletes. I want to help them handle things like sponsorship or partnerships with brands. Doing content, shooting photos and videos and all.”

In his own words, Chi Sheng says he has “a very high standard for photos”, especially of him and his team playing basketball. In pursuit of good photos, he went so far as to invest in a good camera. “My first camera was the Sony A6000, it was a cheap [starter] camera,” he says. “Then I upgraded to the A73, a very expensive camera. And I think because of the way I express myself in these photos, it actually helped me attract brands that want to work with me, sports brands like JD Sports and Li-Ning — now I have a long-term partnership with Li-Ning.”

Chi Sheng’s goal with content creation ultimately goes back to basketball — that it is, to put it simply, about making people feel just as he’d felt when he first watched Slam Dunk. “I want to show that playing basketball is cool,” he sums up. “Wearing those sneakers is cool, playing with the boys is cool. I’m trying to create that kind of vibe. And to make sure that if everybody can take care of themselves and find a way to express their feelings through basketball, then I think we will really have a good thing going.”

interview PUTERI YASMIN SURAYA | editor-in-chief & creative direction MARTIN TEO | assisted by RONN TAN & MALLIE MARAN | stylist ISAAC CHONG | stylist assistant ZIYIN | photography EDMUND LEE (ONE3FOUR STUDIO) | videography POR JIA JUN | assisted by STANLEY | makeup SHIYO JOO | hair JUNO KO | styled in HERMÈS, DIOR

In its fourth year, The Z List 2024 continues to celebrate the inspirational and aspirational, as well as the most dynamic youths who find strength in empowering their communities through the work that they do. Working together, the Gen-Zers come in full force to make an impact strength on strength.