Yi vs. Yao
Published November 9th, 2007 in Off TopicTonight’s NBA game is going to be one of the few games where two top Chinese home grown players (approved by the Chinese government unlike Wang Zhizhi’s career - where his games were banned in China for non-conformity) meet for the first time as opponents rather than as teammates on the national team. It propels the NBA in front of 200 million viewers in China instantly with television coverage throughout the country, a big win for the NBA.
Yao’s game is more refined and solid in the post after a few years in the NBA. While not as exciting to watch but still a force to be reckon with (as Duncan’s game is boring as hell too). Glad they fired Van Gundy for making Yao set picks at the three point line which wasted his energy tremendously.
Too bad Stern did not do a little more to promote the game in the US. Thank goodness for league pass though.
Half time update: Yi plays too soft, and don’t get enough touches from Redd. He’s really not demanding the ball enough, and wasting talent setting ineffective high picks. So far the match up has been total domination by Yao, as we have expected from a Bucks team that does not run specific plays for Yi.
End game: Yi Jianlian came alive in the second half and scored a majority of his total points during the late quarters. It is tiring to watch him wide open while his teammates continue to force up shots. Let him loose to knock down some threes.
2 Responses to “Yi vs. Yao”
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I watched Yi play most of the game and he’s impressive as a rookie. He even has NBA 3 point range… Wow! And on a few occasions he guarded Tmac and Yao respectively and was doing ok. Still a bit too skinny so I saw him having to apply a lot of force to box out for rebound. But it’s not like he’s getting knocked out of position. He was doing ok actually. And he played 34 minutes without showing much sign of being exhausted so I guess he’s ok with that. I know how exhausting it is to try to box out 250 lb people.
One of the big reasons why Yao’s team mates continue to feed him the ball is because all of them have shoe contracts in China. Even Luis Scola has a shoe contract just because he plays on the same team as Yao.
While Milwaukee’s management know the real value of Yi Jilian, the other players have to catch on and support their new floor general if they want those lucrative sneaker contracts. The spoils of basketball in Milwaukee does not lie with Michael Redd. Support Yi as the new general, and all of the other Milwaukee Buck role players can get nice shoe contracts in China.
Luis Scola - NBA star, no. Shoe contract in China, yes.
Steve Francis - NBA star, faded. Shoe contract in China, yes.
Shane Battier - NBA star, no. Shoe contract in China, yes.
Chuck Hayes - NBA star, hell no. Shoe contract in China, yes.
What do they all have in common? They feed Yao the ball, and support him as the number 1 scoring option on the Rockets.