The Milwaukee Bucks met with draft pick Yi Jianlian for the first time at the NBA's Summer League in Las Vegas.
Yi, Bucks general manager Larry Harris and Bucks coach Larry Krystkowiak met for about an hour at a hotel on Thursday to get to know the tall power forward and begin lobbying him to sign with the team.
Yi scored 23 points and grabbed four rebounds in 28 minutes of China's 86-77 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday night. He had a stretch in the second half where he hit seven straight field goals. Yi had a two-handed dunk over Rudy Gay early in the second quarter, a powerful move to the basket that brought several at the Cox Pavillion to their feet.
"I felt better about today's game," Yi said via an interpreter.
Yi finished with seven fouls -- summer league games allow 10 fouls before disqualification -- and seven turnovers. Still, it was an improvement from earlier in the week when he struggled against the Dallas Mavericks, only scoring 11 points in a loss on Tuesday.
"After a slow start [earlier this week], he is finally starting to show he is a player with great potential," China coach Jonas Kauslaukas said through an interpreter. "I don't want to say that this was his best game, but he played better and stronger."
Yi has not visited Milwaukee. In Dallas, where the Chinese National Team played a series of exhibitions earlier this week, he declined to talk about the draft or even the prospect of playing for the Bucks.
Agent Dan Fegan did not return messages left on Friday at his office or cell phone.
Fegan had pushed for the 19-year-old Yi to go to a city with a heavy Asian influence and Yi's handlers did not allow the Bucks to watch him participate in a predraft workout in Los Angeles.
But Harris said he planned to take the best player available and told Fegan he would not shy away from Yi, even though Milwaukee has only about 1,200 Chinese residents.
In the meantime, Bucks owner and Sen. Herb Kohl has written a letter to Yi, which was delivered by Harris on Thursday, to establish a dialogue with the star.
"We'll see what happens," Kohl said. "We're all in the process of reaching out to try and establish a constructive dialogue with him and his family and representatives."
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB