TEHRAN – The Iranian 24-year-old guard Behnam Yakhchali has joined Chinese basketball club Nanjing Monkeys.

Yakhchali has joined the Chinese club from Petrochimi of Iran.

He is accompanying Iran national basketball team in Russia’s training camp as part of preparation for the 2019 FIBA World Cup in China.

The Chinese Basketball Association has been a good destination for the Iranian players in the recent years, as Samad Nikkhah Bahrami, Hamed Haddadi and Mehdi Kamrani have already played in CBA.

Nanjing Monkeys play in the Southern Division of the CBA. The club joined the league ahead of the 2014–15 CBA season as Jiangsu Tongxi Monkey King, after spending their first seven campaigns at the lower levels of the country's basketball hierarchy.

The team were renamed the Nanjing Tongxi Monkey King after the 2016–17 CBA season.