It seems that more and more players who are looking to improve their position in the NBA Draft are putting some sort of restrictions on the types of pre-draft workouts that they will conduct. Agents for these players are trying to improve their clients' positions in the draft, and see little upside in having one of their players embarrassed on the court in any type of meaningful basketball exhibition.
This type of control over the workout process resulted in Danny Ainge and Doc Rivers getting on a plane and flying to Los Angeles to watch Yi Jianlian run through drills ... against a chair. From the Boston Globe:
Ainge and Rivers traveled to Los Angeles Wednesday to watch a workout featuring Yi. According to Ainge, the Celtics have seen Yi play more than a dozen times for either his Chinese pro team or the Chinese national team. Watching Yi run through predetermined drills was far from ideal, prompting Ainge to joke about the workout.
"It was a good workout, Yi against a chair or a coach," said Ainge. "That's how some of those workouts are beautiful. The chair played good defense a couple times . . ."
If I'm Yi's agent, I may have to reconsider the whole "chair" thing. The chair played good defense? Maybe they should get a smaller chair, or one without wheels so it couldn't guard as well. Personally, I would go with an ottoman. Sure it's a little wider, but it's lower to the ground, can't move as quickly, and would have a really tough time blocking the seven-footer's shot.
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Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 1)
1. LMAFWROTG (Laughing my ass off while rolling on the ground). Ottoman, genius!
Posted at 1:37PM on Jun 8th 2007 by Nedu
2. Maybe Yi sabotaged his own workout because he doesn't want to go to Boston?
Posted at 4:13PM on Jun 8th 2007 by loko
3. Like getting stuffed by a chair would stop Ainge from drafting him.
Posted at 7:22PM on Jun 8th 2007 by Chad
4. Yi is an established player. He gains nothing by working out against others, just the possbility of injury. His prior performance against team USA should speak for itself (because if I mention any other competition, you might deem it unworthy)- how many of these top college kids can say they've competed at that level before. Work out or no work out, Yi is a top 10 pick.
Posted at 2:15PM on Jun 9th 2007 by Tony
5. Come on. If the chair stuffed him, Ainge wouldn't draft him. He'd draft the chair.
Posted at 9:17PM on Jun 9th 2007 by Martin
6. Everyone knows ottomans are easy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k98bRUOb4g
(fast forward to 0:30)...
Posted at 5:01AM on Jun 10th 2007 by Miss Gossip
7. The first person to cast doubts on Yi's age is the American Brooke Larmer, a writer for TIME based in China. In his introduction of Yi back in 2003 (the first English article devoted to Yi), he wrote:
http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101030908/xyi.html
"So when might Yi Jianlian don an NBA uniform? That depends on the biggest mystery of all: his age. The national junior-team roster says Yi was born on Oct. 27, 1987, which would make him just 15 —and not eligible to enter the NBA draft independently as an international player until 2009. Several well-placed Chinese basketball experts say he is 17 or 18. Dates are manipulated, they claim, to give Yi more years of eligibility for junior competitions, which China counts on to increase its international prestige. (Age shaving is endemic in international junior competitions. It even affected the Clippers' Wang Zhizhi, who had NBA teams scrambling to verify his true age to make sure he was old enough for the draft.) Yi and his parents both say on the record that he was born in 1987. But when pressed on the issue, Yi turns away and fills the room with an uncomfortable silence, and his father smiles blankly without responding. "
17 or 18 years old, or 2, 3 years older than listed, would render birth dates of 1984 or 1985. Later, Larmer wrote the following in his book "Operation Yao Ming" (2005):
"Yi Jianlian's prospects were even murkier, for they hinged, in part, on the biggest mystery of all: his age. The national team roster listed Yi's birthdate as October 27, 1987, a date that Chinese basketball experts said was deliberately falsified to give him more years of eligibility for junior competitions. Insiders say Yi was actually born in 1984. The practice of "age-shaving" had haunted Wang Zhizhi, and now, nearly a decade later, it hovered over Yi, who, like Wang, presumably had no choice in the matter. If the 6'11'' forward turned eighteen in October 2005, as the roster claimed, he would be considered one of the more enticing young prospects in the world. If he turned twenty-one, then his development, while impressive, lagged behind Yao and Wang. Even so, he would be automatically eligible to enter the NBA draft in 2006.
"Nobody involved in Chinese basketball wanted to talk about Yi's age controversy, least of Yi himself. His Guangdong coach declined to confirm or deny the age fraud, saying only that the 1987 birth date appeared on Yi's official hukou, or residency permit. His parents both said publicly that he was born in 1987, but when pressed on the issue, his father smiled blankly without responding. Asked the same question in a private dinner in August 2003, Yi himself turned away and gazed at the patterned carpeting on the floor, filling the room with an uncomfortable silence. He snapped back to attention, however, when his out-of-town visitor explained the biggest consequence of the age manipulation: "Did you know that, according to NBA rules, you won't be eligible to enter the NBA draft without official permission until 2009?"
Yi shook his head forlornly.
"That's a long time," he said. He couldn't afford to say any more.
Yi Jianlian may not be the next Yao so much as the next Wang Zhizhi. In early 2005, as the controversy over Yi's age bubbled on Internet chat rooms, China's official Olympic Web site shifted his birth year from 1987 to 1984. There was no explanation for the sudden bout of truthfulness, and many observers took it as a hopeful sign that the CBA's new leader, Li Yuanwei, was putting an end to the practice of age-shaving. Even so, few people believed that Beijing would let its newest basketball giant go to the NBA anytime soon."
The incident he refers to in the last paragraph happened in the Four Nation Invitational in Urumqi. Sun Baosheng, a reporter for the Beijing Evening News, noticed that the official roster issued by the National Team has Yi listed as being born in 1984 and not 1987. Soon, American websites such as realgm.com and nbadraft.net also reported such news. (http://www.nbadraft.net/jianlianstory001.asp) Yi never responded, although National Team manager Kuang LuBin expressed shock and said "it may be a typo".
Later, it was found from archives online that Yi Jianlian had been listed as being born in 1984 once previously by the Chinese basketball association, when they announced the national teams in 2003.
(http://sports.sina.com.cn/up/3039.shtml link in Chinese)
Then this photo was discovered online.
http://blog.luohuedu.net/Images/Pictures/3844/24227/o_20070112090503.jpg
It shouldn't be too hard to guess who Yi is in the picture. The Chinese characters below read: "Shenzhen City Xinxiu Elementary School Graduation Class of '97, Grade 6, Group 3, Teachers & Students Commemorative Photo".
By Chinese law, any child need to be at least 6 years old to enter 1st grade in September. If Yi indeed graduated in 1997 in 6th grade, then he had to enter school in 1991, less than 4 years old if he were born in October 27, 1987 as listed, something highly improbable in a populous city like Shenzhen City. Yi also took part in the GaoKao (or China's National College Entrance Exam) in 2003. Most Chinese students take it after graduating from high school, usually around 18 years old.
Here is another interesting piece of evidence (http://sports.163.com/07/0511/23/3E8GV6DF00051CA1.html link in Chinese) In this interview, Yi's parents revealed that they moved from Heshan City, where the Guangdong handball teams were located (Both parents were former players) to Shenzhen City in 1983 (father) and 1985 (mother) respectively. Yi has always been listed as being born in Heshan (http://delegation.olympic.cn/yundongyuan/yundongyuan-e.php?Array=969) while growing up in Shenzhen.
Posted at 5:27PM on Jun 17th 2007 by Anonymous