The 2008-09 CBA season was the 14th CBA season. Guangdong Southern Tigers

Guangdong Southern Tigers

Guangdong Winnerway Southern Tigers or Guangdong Southern Tigers or Guangdong Winnerway is a basketball team owned by the Guangdong Winnerway Group. The team is one of the best-performing teams in the Chinese Basketball Association, or CBA...

 defended their CBA title after defeating Xinjiang Flying Tigers

Xinjiang Flying Tigers

Xinjiang Guanghui Flying Tigers or Xinjiang Flying Tigers or Xinjiang Guanghui are a basketball team in the Chinese Basketball Association, based in Ürümqi, Xinjiang. Its corporate sponsor is Xinjiang Guanghui Group, Ltd...

 in the Finals, four games to one.

Tianjin Ronggang

Tianjin Ronggang

The Tianjin Ronggang Golden Lions are a basketball team in the North Division of the Chinese Basketball Association, based in Tianjin....

 were promoted to the CBA after the team owners voted in favor of them over two other candidates, Qingdao DoubleStar

Qingdao DoubleStar

The Qingdao DoubleStar Eagles are a basketball team in the North Division of the Chinese Basketball Association, based in Qingdao, Shandong.-Former notable players: Dee Brown Torraye Braggs Amal McCaskill...

 and Guangdong Fenglü. Qingdao later replaced Beijing Aoshen for their place in the CBA, when the latter failed to submit relevant files on time and lost their qualification for the season.

Foreign players of each team could play unlimited time each game, except only 5 quarters collectively when facing Bayi Rockets

Bayi Rockets

Bayi Shuanglu Rockets or Bayi Rockets or Bayi Army Rockets or Bayi Shuanglu are a basketball team in the South Division of the Chinese Basketball Association, based in Ningbo, Zhejiang...

. The two newly promoted teams and the bottom two teams of the last season could each have one extra Asian foreign players.

Playoffs

Teams in bold advanced to the next round. The numbers to the left of each team indicate the team's seeding in regular season, and the numbers to the right indicate the number of games the team won in that round. Home court advantage belongs to the team with the better regular season record; teams enjoying the home advantage are shown in italics.