Make up your mind, Milwaukee

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[From Stephen B. Snyde...]

Does this epitomize the Yi Jianlian situation in Milwaukee or what? A few days ago, Don Walker of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel pointed out...

"In Milwaukee, meanwhile, the small Chinese community has set up a website welcoming Yi to Milwaukee. The site is at www.yifansclub.com."

First off, as of this writing, the "Schedule" link on the site goes directly to the Milwaukee Bucks NBA team calendar. I guess we won't be finding any local rallies to drum up support or anything.

Secondly, the "News" link goes directly to a blogpost entitled "We Don't Want Yi in Milwaukee". I suppose an angry dissident found the time and the wherewithal to post something that would automatically get displayed prominently on the frontpage as well as the News page of the website. The post is not all that friendly, either...

"Yi embodies everything that is wrong with professional sports [followed by a long paragraph]...Is Yi the next step in the evolution of the spoiled athlete? [followed by another long paragraph]...[and ending with] I hope you can find a better use of your time than maintaining this website"

Can you say oops?!!!

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Durant = playoffs, Oden = conference finals

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[From Stephen B. Snyde...]

Poor Man's Commish doesn't usually let me argue about NBA teams and what they should do, because normally we like to leave the rantin' and ravin' to the myriad of blogs out there, but when I brought this up, he didn't think anybody had touched on it, at least not the way I'm about to.

Now that Portland and Seattle are #1 and #2 in this year's deep NBA Draft, which will lead to this year's best Vegas Summer League ever, you have to be asking yourself: Greg Oden or Kevin Durant?

Ballaz everywhere will, of course, lean towards Durant because we can all "be like Kevin". You have to be much taller than everybody else around you to be like Greg. And it's hard to pass on a guy who scored 30 ppg in the college format. What if Oden is to Sam Bowie as Durant is to Michael Jordan?

But haven't we seen enough in the NBA Playoffs this year? You look at the Warriors and you go, "Plenty of swingmen. They need a Carlos Boozer, Kevin Garnett, or Elton Brand. They need a tall guy in the middle who can score, rebound and draw defenders to kick out." You look at the Suns and you go, "Something's wrong with the system. The Spurs closed down everything and let Amare Stoudemire get his. The Suns need another Amare." You look at the Spurs and you go, "Who the heck can guard Tim Duncan and not be forced into a double-team?"

Now, there are plenty of teams that merely need a Durant to get to the playoffs. Or a Yi Jianlian, who is simply a freak-of-nature inside-out pick a la Dirk Nowitzki. In fact, we've already seen the better playoff teams neutralize opposing fives made up of mini-Durants (think Leandro Barbosa and Stephen Jackson in their team systems) and, of course, MVP Dirk.

Remember, it's a team game. Granted, Durant maybe can disrupt a Jazz, Spurs, or Pistons defense enough to significantly alter their pack-it-in styles. But that seems like more of a risky prediction as we sit on the verge of the NBA Finals these next couple weeks.

If you want any chance of getting to the conference finals, you must pick Oden.

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Dish on Yi Jianlian makes it good to have Insider today

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[Believe it or not, I actually compare Yi Jianlian to a dreamleaguer...read on!]

If you're a fan of Yi as we are, today's ESPN Insider article by Chad Ford makes the Insider subscription worth it (even though we got ours at a major discount, ha!).

Ford witnessed workouts by Yi over two days in LA and had rave reviews. Here are some samples, for those of you blocked out of the Insider wall...

• Don MacLean (former UCLA star and current trainer for Nick Young, draft prospect out of USC): "Have you seen the Yi kid yet? That kid was amazing."
  
  
• Joakim Noah, who was also training in LA, about Yi's workouts: "Something to behold. Where did that guy come from?"...

Read the rest of the story

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Team China in 2007 Vegas Summer League

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Guess who's playing in the 2007 Vegas NBA Summer League? Yeah, yeah, we knew about soon-to-be new NBA players Kevin Durant and Greg Oden already, but how about a new team?

Perhaps as part of the recent NBA-China partnership, according to the NBA Summer League website, the Chinese National Team will be playing in the league this summer! It's probably a good deal for Team China too, getting valuable experience against top-notch talent one year before the Olympics.

Based on the modified look-and-feel of the site, the NBA appears to be taking over management of the league, as there are no more references to the league's founder, NBA coaches' super-agent Warren LeGarie, who had hinted recently (I can't remember where I read it) that the NBA could be aiming to do just that.

Don't forget how deep a draft this year is going to be! And can you picture Yi Jianlian going up against his former comrades?

Well, this just reinforces the probability that dreamleague will be hosting a tournament there to coincide with what's going to be the best Vegas Summer League on record -- probably the tail end, July 14-15.

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Yao: Yi = Amare (what???)

Uhhhh, no Yao, no.

[From Stephen B. Snyde...]

Two things this past week on Yi Jianlian. Before we get to the atrocious, Wang Mang of Titan Sports was quoted in the Philadelphia Daily News by Phil Jasner as saying:

"People in China think he won't be as successful as Yao. They think he doesn't seem to have [the same] desire, that he's not as hungry as Yao...But Yi is really hungry, especially this year. When we got confirmation that he will come to the NBA, he's worked so hard."

Oh good, so the Chinese people are apparently aware that there are certain shortcomings of the Chinese basketball academies.

Btw, the article also said Yi will be endorsing McDonald's coming up.

Now, the atrocious. In the same story, Yao Ming says:

"[Yi] is very close to a player who is in the NBA like I would say Amare Stoudemire."

Duuuuude. Why'd ya hafta make such a PREPOSTEROUS comment in the midst of Poor Man's Commish's impassioned defense of Yi?

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Watch racial stereotypes run rampant when Yi Jianlian gets drafted

I guess I'm kind of glad this happened, even though it knocked out a whole day's list of other to-do's. This stuff opens your eyes. It makes you wiser, stronger, more appreciative of each person's individuality. I'm glad I spent a whole day thinking about it.

Today, our otherwise-revered TrueHoop, written by Henry Abbott, made the following bullet-point post:

• Footage of Yi Jianlian making a bunch of dunks that look to me like they would likely be blocked, or stolen on the way up, in the NBA.

For the 100+ teams and players of those teams currently playing in our SF Bay Area and New York Asian American leagues, you know the feeling already.

It's kind of like the hoops blogger (Bill Simmons? Chad Ford? Henry Abbott himself? Honestly, I can't remember where I read it) who said in response to the major uproar following the Vegas All-Star Weekend in which arrests and violence were referenced strongly with the African American and hip-hop community:

[Reminder: I'm paraphrasing by memory here.] "I couldn't tell you if an African American, with corn rows and baggy pants, approaching me on the street is really a gangsta or a student at UPenn..."

Read the rest of the story

UPDATED: See comments
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Adversity, not fundamentals

In this week's ESPN The Mag, Oakley Brooks uncovered a little tidbit about a certain group of 37 teenagers (5 of them over 7-feet, including Yi Jianlian) from China, spotted at a Rockets-Blazers game and currently training at the U.S. Basketball Academy in Oregon:

"From a skills perspective, they don't have to apologize to anyone," says Cameron Hill, a former assistant at Kentucky who's overseeing the Chinese ballers' six-month stay...Still, [they] lack fundamentals, particularly when it comes to lifting weights and running a standard half-court spread. That's why Chinese officials sent their best to the West.

I humbly submit that the missing ingredient is not the fundamentals as described. It is good old-fashioned adversity.

The mental aspect of the game is very complex, but it all starts with adversity, overcoming a challenge that you as a balla take personally. In the NBA, sometimes it's the difficulties of growing up in the inner-city that propels one's desire to succeed. Everyone has to find their own fuel, not matter what level you're at.

For me, it was simply being demoted from starting floor general to 3rd-string point guard in 9th grade -- this was before I sprouted 9 inches to 5'11" one year later -- after being yelled at as an idiot in front of the entire gym by my coach in preseason for forgetting the defensive switch from zone to man, crushing my confidence for years. I then slowly climbed my way back to starting small forward as a senior. With local playground ball still part of my staple, even as I left town for college I still vowed to become better than any of the starters that had been ahead of me or go-to guys throughout all those years, just in case I ever saw one of my old alums on the blacktop.

In the game of basketball, everyone has to find their own fuel. I'm not sure the Chinese basketball academies realize that.

On a side note, here's the illustration from Frank Stockton that accompanied the article. It's not particularly helpful in breaking down the stereotypes of Chinese/Asian ballas: http://www.frankstockton.com/espn.html

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