Yi Jianlian might not like being compared to Yao Ming, but he is not shy about wearing his No. 11 jersey this season with the Los Angeles Lakers.
Speaking during the Lakers’ practice on Friday in suburban El Segundo, the 28-year-old forward-center said the two agreed that Yi would wear Yao’s former number with his new NBA team.
“Yao asked me. We talked about it,” Yi said.
Photo: AP
Hall-of-Famer Yao wore No. 11 during his eight seasons with the Houston Rockets, averaging 19 points and 9.2 rebounds.
Yi was once dubbed “the next Yao Ming,” but says he is a different player with his own unique skill set.
“To me it is different. Yao is Yao. The biggest player in China,” Yi told a packed scrum of English and Chinese-language reporters on the practice court.
Photo: Reuters
“I learned a lot from him. I talk to him a lot. We have a different mindset about basketball,” he said.
The struggling Lakers last month signed Yi, from He Shan, Guangdong Province, to a one-year deal at US$1.14 million that could be worth up to US$8 million with incentives and bonuses.
The 2.11m Yi is back in the NBA after a four-year hiatus. The native Cantonese-speaking Yi played in China with the Guangdong Southern Tigers from 2012 to this year, and was the cornerstone for the Chinese national team at last month’s Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
Yi says his stellar performance in his fourth trip to the Olympics likely boosted his worth for the Lakers.
“I had success for sure in the Olympics,” said Yi, who averaged 20.4 points and 6.6 rebounds while shooting 46 percent from three-point range.
“Team China was a young team. For myself, I just tried to play hard and try to get a win,” he said.
Yao and Yi know each other well both on and off the court. They were Olympic teammates and squared off against each other in Yao’s final NBA game on Nov. 10, 2010, between the Rockets and the Wizards in Washington.
Yi on Friday said he never lost hope that he would one day return to the NBA.
“I always expected it. I was always getting ready. I kept my confidence,” Yi said. “I am excited, for sure. I have been out for four years. To come back and play for the Lakers is very exciting. Especially to play for this city and to play for this team. It is known all over the world.”
Yi was the sixth overall pick in the 2007 NBA draft, a class that included first overall pick Greg Oden plus Kevin Durant, Al Horford and Joakim Noah.
However, Yi never really lived up to his potential in his five NBA seasons, averaging only 7.9 points and 4.9 rebounds with the Milwaukee Bucks, New Jersey Nets, Washington Wizards and Dallas Mavericks.
Yi says basketball in China is getting better each year as an increasing number of imports are joining their elite league and more Chinese players are traveling overseas.
“The league is getting better. A lot of NBA players go there now and play. It is not easy to play there. You can ask the players,” he said.
Yi said he does not expect to have a problem adjusting to the faster speed and pace of the NBA game.
“I feel pressure, but I feel very excited for that. I played a lot of games in China, in Asia and in the Olympics, so that is a lot of experience. For me, this is a good opportunity,” he said.
The Lakers finished a franchise-worst 17-65 last year in Kobe Bryant’s farewell season.
Yi thinks he can add some size to the roster and help with the Lakers’ three-point shooting.
“In the summer time, I talked to coach Luke [Walton]. I told him I think I can fit into their system. I think I can really play over here.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier