Agreed, and I should add that soldiers who are so mentally and emotionally weak that they would rather have a permanent outdoor basketball court on a warship instead of a helicopter hangar to hunt enemy submarines are more of a detriment than a strength of China. Good soldiers and citizens have mental and moral character. Mental and moral character is built through a combination of challenging life experience, guidance and empathy not through leisure activities to stymie boredom and loneliness. Although boredom and loneliness are the twin causes that many attribute to suicide and low morale, in essence the psychological threshold level and tolerance of people comes down to their level of mental, emotional and moral strength.Ship 88 is a support ship. While I agree that comfort and military rarely can be used together, you gotta find ways to keep your soldiers happy or else they leave the service.
Having said that, keep in mind, we're talking about an outdoor basketball court that is THOUSANDS of square feet on a warship with limited deck space! Arguing for this is like saying putting an Olympic size swimming pool on a destroyer would make sense since it would improve the morale of the crew. In that case, it would mean a 20000 tonne cruiser with leisure facilities like a huge swimming pool, basketball court and dedicated running track would have similar military hardware to a 9000 tonne destroyer. Get my drift? Since this is a support ship, there's a little bit more leeway. However, it's still a warship that works together as part of a larger fleet. That space is better used to store supplies to increase the endurance of the rest of the fleet it belongs to while leisure activities should be diverted to more space conserving activities.