by Stop Mike Lupica on September 4 at 1:42PM
One more late update: I was reading this article about Yi Jianlian getting signed by the Bucks, and have to link to it because its the best one on the topic. My favorite part? When TSN gets this quote:
Anyway, in all seriousness - the NBA (and the Bucks) avert a public relations disaster, and Yi gets to play in the NBA next season. He's seriously the most intriguing rookie next season, in my opinion - look, you know what to expect from Kevin Durant. Lots of scoring, lots of points. I personally think we're at least a few seasons away from Durant hitting his full potential, as I have said many times. If he tops 20 ppg this season, it's purely because there isn't anyone else on the Sonics to shoot, and his FG% will probably be atrocious (somewhere around 42% at best).
We know what to expect from Greg Oden, kinda. Personally, I think he has a higher ceiling than most give him credit for, and he will be the next great center - he'll be a young, original-kidney-possessing Alonzo Mourning, but in a league where big men don't exist as much (when Mourning was playing, here's a list of some of the centers he was up against: Ewing, Hakeem, Mutumbo a few years later, Shaq, Robinson - that's the entire list of "Most Dominating Centers since Kareem". Mourning had to play against all of them, plus other guys who would rule today... guys like Rick Smits (hated that dude, but you think he would drop 20 ppg nowadays? He's Ilgaukas with posting ability). Who does Greg Oden face at center? Yao. Eventually Roy Hibbert. Maybe pseudo-centers like Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan, Dwight Howard and Dirk Nowitzki. The point being, Greg Oden is going to do pretty well in this NBA longterm. For his rookie season, though, I think 16 ppg and 9-11 rpg, plus a little under 2 bpg, is a solid expectation. He could exceed them, but we have some idea of what to expect.
Yi? No idea. Can he dominate in the NBA? Can he have a Bargnini-like impact, but with more points? He's a 7-foot SF... in the games against the NBA in the preseason, he showed the ability to score, and win games with time running down. Does this mean he'll become the go-to guy in the clutch for the Bucks? Will he lead the team in scoring and average around 20 ppg? Or will he defer to Mo Williams, Redd, and Bogut, and ending being the fourth option in terms of offense?
Will Yi be a solid defender? With his height, can he block and steal (and rebound) like another extremely tall foreign SF, Andrei Kirilenko?
We'll see when the season starts. No question though that Yi is this year's most intriguing rookie....
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"A lot of fans probably calmed down, waiting
for the results of negotiation," said Gaosheng Liu, a 42-year-old engineer
who has lived in
Anyway, in all seriousness - the NBA (and the Bucks) avert a public relations disaster, and Yi gets to play in the NBA next season. He's seriously the most intriguing rookie next season, in my opinion - look, you know what to expect from Kevin Durant. Lots of scoring, lots of points. I personally think we're at least a few seasons away from Durant hitting his full potential, as I have said many times. If he tops 20 ppg this season, it's purely because there isn't anyone else on the Sonics to shoot, and his FG% will probably be atrocious (somewhere around 42% at best).
We know what to expect from Greg Oden, kinda. Personally, I think he has a higher ceiling than most give him credit for, and he will be the next great center - he'll be a young, original-kidney-possessing Alonzo Mourning, but in a league where big men don't exist as much (when Mourning was playing, here's a list of some of the centers he was up against: Ewing, Hakeem, Mutumbo a few years later, Shaq, Robinson - that's the entire list of "Most Dominating Centers since Kareem". Mourning had to play against all of them, plus other guys who would rule today... guys like Rick Smits (hated that dude, but you think he would drop 20 ppg nowadays? He's Ilgaukas with posting ability). Who does Greg Oden face at center? Yao. Eventually Roy Hibbert. Maybe pseudo-centers like Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan, Dwight Howard and Dirk Nowitzki. The point being, Greg Oden is going to do pretty well in this NBA longterm. For his rookie season, though, I think 16 ppg and 9-11 rpg, plus a little under 2 bpg, is a solid expectation. He could exceed them, but we have some idea of what to expect.
Yi? No idea. Can he dominate in the NBA? Can he have a Bargnini-like impact, but with more points? He's a 7-foot SF... in the games against the NBA in the preseason, he showed the ability to score, and win games with time running down. Does this mean he'll become the go-to guy in the clutch for the Bucks? Will he lead the team in scoring and average around 20 ppg? Or will he defer to Mo Williams, Redd, and Bogut, and ending being the fourth option in terms of offense?
Will Yi be a solid defender? With his height, can he block and steal (and rebound) like another extremely tall foreign SF, Andrei Kirilenko?
We'll see when the season starts. No question though that Yi is this year's most intriguing rookie....
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Great headline, i think the bucks could be real good soon, as long as Bogut progresses after a little bit of a down sophomore season. The East is getting better homies; the bucks may not make the playoffs this year, but they have a solid future.
So they found a single Asian guy to convince Yi that he'd have at least one homegrown fan when he plays in Milwaukee...LOL