Just when you thought the Yi Jianlian situation could not get any stranger, the Guandong Tigers hit you with a curveball. Today the chief of Yi's Chinese team, Chen Haitao, clarified why exactly there was no way that Yi could play for Milwaukee:
"This is not -- as media reports have said -- because Milwaukee, as a city with very few Chinese people, is not good for Yi's commercial development," Chen said.
"Rather we want to find a team suitable for Yi's growth. That's the root of the problem," he added.
Ok, so why exactly isn't Milwaukee a good place for Yi's growth?
Chen expressed concern that Yi would have trouble getting game time with the Bucks, whose squad boasts Australian 7-footer Andrew Bogut and a number of other tall young players.
"The national team and the Olympic Games are now our key considerations ... If [Yi] goes to a team where he can't compete, that would be being irresponsible to the national team," Chen said.
This explantion has two very important aspects to it, so here is a look at both of them:
We Do Not Understand: The most striking aspect of Chen's explanation is the assertation that Yi might not be able to get much playing time in Milwaukee. Andrew Bogut and "a number of other tall young players" are cited as the cause for his apprehension. Now, if Chen is indeed sincere in his statement, one of two things must be true; either he does not understand the NBA game, or they fear that Charlie Villanueva is an All-Star caliber power forward. As far as not understanding the NBA, or more specifically Yi's role as a player in the NBA, Chen somehow thinks that Yi will be competing with Andrew Bogut for playing time. Here is a quick little news flash; Bogut is a classic center, Yi is a mobile and athletic power forward. Yi is never going to cut into Bogut's minutes or vice versa because the two play different roles. It is obvious that the Bucks drafted Yi because they thought he would compliment Bogut, not compete with him. Also...who exactly are these other young seven footers who are going to keep Yi on the bench? Brian Skinner? Dan Gadzuric? Please. So that leaves only Charlie Villanueva as Yi's main competition for minutes. Villanueva is indeed quite a talented player, and in the future he could reasonably develop into a consistent 16 PPG / 8 RPG kind of guy. Consider however, that Villanueva is coming off shoulder surgery that caused him to miss half of last season, and that even when he did play he started less than half of the time. So this is the big barrier to Yi getting playing time? Does Chen actually think that the Bucks would have used such a high draft pick in a loaded draft on a player they were going to sit behind Villanueva? Give me a break.
For Love Of Country: As far as Milwaukee is concerned, the Bucks should be most worried about Chen's belief that playing in Milwaukee will hurt the Chinese national team in their preparation for the Olympics. China is hosting the 2008 summer games, and it is quite obvious that the Chinese Olympic committee has targeted men's basketball as a marquee event in which they are determined to succeed. Why else would China have gone to the trouble of having the national team (sans Yao) play in the NBA Summer League? It is certainly understandable that China is focused on developing Yi at all costs; the only real hope of medaling in the Olympics for China rests upon Yao and Yi becoming a dominant tandem. Yao is already there, but anyone who watched Yi's summer league performance knows that he has a lot of growing to do between now and next summer. So is there any situation where Yao is going to get substantially more playing time than Milwaukee? This again goes back to point one, that Chen and the rest of Yi's camp are showing that they have no clue how the NBA works. What team is going to give a raw 19 year old more playing time than Milwaukee is offering, and fits the orignal demands of being in a larger media market and having a large Chinese population? I mean, how much playing time would be satisfactory? Bogut played 28.6 minutes per game his rookie season, and it isn't unreasonable to think that Yi could at least approach that number splitting time with Villanueva. Is 25-30 minutes a night not enough for Yi and his camp to be happy? If so, than Yi is not likely to find any team with which he will be pleased this season.
Here is the most important thing to draw from these latest comments. All of the people that have been saying that Yi and his camp don't have the guts to stand their ground are flat wrong. The stakes have been raised substantially and if the real concern is in fact related to preparing Yi for the 2008 Olympics than the Bucks can kiss Yi goodbye, China is not going to back off on that one. So please Milwaukee, do what you should have done in the first place; get Brandan Wright. Don Nelson and the Warriors love Yi, and Wright is about as much value as the Bucks could hope to get out of Yi at this point. The worst outcome of this situation for Milwaukee would be if Larry Harris got into a peeing contest with the Yi camp, and his pride caused the Bucks to walk away empty handed. Now is the time to do the smart thing and walk away from Yi. Too bad Milwaukee couldn't have done that on draft night.
