The Xinjiang Guanghui Flying Tigers () is a professional basketball team based in Ürümqi, Xinjiang, China. The team play its home games at the Hongshan Arena, which has a capacity for 3,800 spectators. The club joined the Chinese Basketball Association Division 2 in the 1999–2000 CBA season, advanced to Division 1A in the 2002–03 season, and had three consecutive Grand Finals appearances in the 2008–09, 2009–10 and 2010–11 seasons. The Flying Tigers won their first Championship in the 2016–17 CBA season, defeating their long-time rival Guangdong Southern Tigers 4–0 in the finals. History The Xinjiang Flying Tigers joined the Chinese Basketball Association's Division 2 ahead of the 1999–2000 CBA season, as the first step in the league's plans to expand into the country's western interior. The Flying Tigers won their Division 2 season undefeated and advanced to the Division 1B. Two years later, the Flying Tigers won the 2001–02 season of Division 1B and advanced to Division 1A. In their first Division 1A season, the Flying Tigers managed to advance to the playoffs, but lost to Beijing Ducks in a 3–1 quarter-final series. After this season, they qualified for the playoffs for another three consecutive seasons, but was never able to advance beyond the first round. In the 2007–08 season, the Flying Tigers signed the former NBA player Mengke Bateer, who brought the team to the second place in regular season. However, a Flying Tigers player, Sou Song Cun, also known as Guan Xiuchang, was found to have a foreign nationality but registered as a domestic player. The league punished the Flying Tigers by treating every game that Sou Song Cun played as a loss for the Flying Tigers. As a result, the Flying Tigers dropped to eleventh place, and missed the playoffs. After the disappointing season, head coach Jiang Xingquan promoted several young players from the youth team to the first team, including Shirelijan Muxtar and Kyranbek Makhan, who would go on to become the most iconic players of the franchise. Together with Bateer and Jiang, they created the first golden era of the Xinjiang Flying Tigers. Bateer became the first player to win three consecutive CBA MVPs, and the team made it to three consecutive CBA Grand Finals. However, in each of the Grand Finals series, Xinjiang lost to the Guangdong Southern Tigers. The Flying Tigers started its rebuild in the 2012–13 season. They reached the Grand Finals