Posts for category ‘yi jianlian’

While some Wizards are attempting to eat spoonfuls of cinnamon… While some NBA players, including John Wall, are avoiding bullets at a place called the Juliet Supper Club in New York City… While Ted Leonsis welcomes the “buzz and interest” created by a show making fun of the Wizards team name (but don’t ask him about changing it, he’ll get annoyed)… While Jan Vesley returns to the Czech Republic to contemplate his basketball life… While real estate sites are getting in on the lockout action by posting about NBA player and owner housing…

While NBA players seem rather frustrated about the Lockout, but doing alright nonetheless, the rest of us have done… Not much, aside from being working-stiffs, or in school, or entrenched in unemployment, or perhaps involved in a myriad of issues more concerning than the NBA Lockout. Some days for some of us are good, some days for some not so much. Maybe all is not that bad… unless you’re a Redskins fan in a rainy and foggy District of Columbia the Monday after the football kicker couldn’t pull it out against the rival Dallas Cowboys in overtime.

Perspective. No one on either side, players or owners, seems to have it. Fans, especially those who will inevitably come back to the NBA game anyway, are left with a feeling of helplessness. We are often only left, in the midst of this NBA Lockout, with social media and online pictures. Could you imagine if this happened in 1998? The game and its players would’ve disappeared from our visual pixels exponentially.

I can’t even begin to try to name all the states in which John Wall has played exhibtion basketball this summer – Maryland, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Nevada, Washington, California, New York, Kentucky, and the District of Columbia (there were events in Minnesota and Connecticut where he didn’t show up). I’m likely missing several. He’s been playing basketball overseas as well. Trips to Paris, France.

For the most recent exhibition event, the ‘Good Squad Classic’ held on the campus of UC-Davis outside of Sacramento, Wall showed up, but didn’t play. Jonathan Santiago of Cowbell Kingdom writes, “I had overheard some chatter about his groin giving him some issues, forcing him to sit out the contest.  Donté [Greene] told me that that Wall was indeed injured because he had been playing overseas and that the Washington Wizards guard wanted to ‘rest his body’.”

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While a lockout fills pro basketball headlines in America, United States counterpart China has recently made a recovery from potential basketball disgrace. By winning the 2011 FIBA Asia tournament, reclaiming the title from Iran (winners of FIBA Asia in 2007 and 2009), their men’s national team has secured a spot in the 2012 Olympic games. Much of the thanks is due to the massive nation’s current basketball cover boy, and likely former Washington Wizard, Yi Jianlian.

In a country where the government hopes to manufacture basketball success by building a court in every village, making the cut to play in London was pretty important. The problem is the next step, competing with the best in the world; China has played men’s basketball in the past seven Olympics but has never finished better than eighth. And while he is now their star, Yi has done little to cure anxiousness for success.

Guan Weijia on SheridanHoops.com highlights the issue many Chinese have with Yi: “Fans are dissatisfied with his performance in the NBA, believing he is wasting his talent and playing too soft. Yi has many nicknames, none of which are complimentary.”

The Chinese national team was already smarting from the retirement of Yao Ming in July. In August they came up short at the Stankovic Cup, winning one game and losing seven at the China-hosted event. They lost three games to Russia, one to New Zealand, one to Australia, and won just one of three games against Angola. Worth noting, however, that the minutes of Yi were limited during the Stankovic. Bob Donewald, American coach of the Chinese national team, indicated that he wanted to bring him along gradually. Still, the masses were less than satisfied.

Later in August, China went 0-5 at an international basketball friendly, the London Invitational Tournament. They lost to Australia by 28, Serbia by 34, France by 17, Great Britain by 8, and Croatia by 30 points. Yi averaged 16.8 points, just 6.6 rebounds and a scant 40.8-percent shooting. In addition, during all this, a black eye to China’s basketball discipline arrived courtesy of an on-court brawl in Beijing between a team featuring players connected to the China’s People’s Liberation Army and a team of athlete-students from Washington, D.C.’s Georgetown University.

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I can readily admit that I was encouraged by the way the Washington Wizards played over the last 10 games of the season.  They went 6-4 during that span, a new big three of Jordan Crawford, John Wall and Andray Blatche emerged, and the team–led by D-Leaguer Othyus Jeffers–seemed to play with a sense of urgency that had been lacking earlier in the season.  I wasn’t ready to declare the Wizards a playoff-bound team next season like John Wall so boldly did, but I definitely saw the improvement.

Then the 2011 playoffs started and I saw brilliant performances by underdogs like the Memphis Grizzlies, the Philadelphia 76ers, and the Indiana Pacers.  I also saw teams like the Los Angeles Lakers, the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Boston Celtics advance by stepping up their play.  Then I thought back to the 10-game flash of brilliance the Wizards showed and I realized that as good as they looked at certain points, they clearly have a long way to go before they can compete under the hot lights of playoff basketball. The same type of comparison can be made to Yi Jianlian and his 2010-2011 season with Washington.

Last summer at the FIBA Championships held in Turkey, Yi displayed the type of aggression that had been lacking during his three-year NBA career with the Milwaukee Bucks and the New Jersey Nets.  He averaged 20.2 points, 10.2 rebounds, unveiled a quality drop-step move, and emerged as the leader of the Yao Ming-less Chinese National team.  After that FIBA performance, Michael Lee of the Washington Post wrote:

“It’s hard to tell how Yi’s performance will translate to the upcoming season, since he will not be featured with the Wizards as he was with China, which was not good enough to survive a sub-par performance from Yi. But if Yi arrives at training camp healthy, as expected, he should also come with much more confidence in his abilities. There are still flaws that he will have to overcome, and his defense still leaves much to be desired, but the Wizards shouldn’t have any regrets about basically renting Yi’s services for free for a year.”

Lee’s words proved to be prophetic once the season started, because Yi retained none of the brilliance he played with during the FIBA Championships.  Instead of being the focus on offense like he was in China, Yi was often the second or third man off the bench, and his appearances lacked consistency and aggression.  To make matters worse, Yi had recurring knee injuries that further hindered his ability to play effective, even in limited minutes.  A typical Yi appearance would go as follows:

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It seems that the Wizards lost a tough 127-119 double-overtime game to the Los Angeles Clippers last night. Unfortunately, I was unable to watch live, and unfortunately, the DVR was not set to record that much extra basketball. Still, that won’t preclude me from studying the portions of the game I was able to record tonight.

“They’re hurt in there,” Flip Saunders told the media after the game. It can’t hurt for too long, however, because not one of the remaining 12 games on the season will be easy. And the 17-51 Wizards need three more wins so as not to tie franchise records for losing futility in an 82-game slate. Getting to 20 wins is, however, unlikely.

It’s conceivable that Washington’s 98-92 win over the New Jersey Nets at home last Sunday will be their last of the season. Sure, they’ll have good chances to score Verizon Center wins over Cleveland (April 1) and Detroit (April 5), or even their second road win in the last game of the season versus the Cavaliers (April 13), but why not throw a bit of pessimism in the bag with optimism and realism?

Because as much positivity that was pumped after that good win over the Nets — as it should be — there were also some glaring issues, ones that have been seen many times before, which really must come to a halt before the team can proceed with winning in the future. The same issues likely kept the Wizards from winning against the Clippers, even though they hung tough til the end. So let’s start with JaVale McGee versus the Nets…

McGee can do a lot of great things (like crazy blocks), as long as he hustles and focuses, this we know. But those great things aren’t exactly helping the Wizards win games now. It’s McGee’s losing basketball that hurts … when he gets tired, stops hustling, loses focus and seems to just not care.

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[Yi Jianlian thwarts a Ty Lawson foray into the lane.]

“From the standpoint of what we’re trying to do — it’s tough to say when you’ve lost 24 in a row — but we’re doing things because we know where we were when the season started. We’re doing things based on where we’re going to be next year and in two years.” -Flip Saunders after losing to the Dallas Mavericks on Monday, putting his Wizards at 0-24 on the road.

“We’re going to get one, hopefully sooner than later,” the coach eventually concluded in his post-game session with the media, as seen on Washington’s Comcast SportsNet. The Wizards are building hope on a 0-24 road record, but it is worth taking a closer look at some nuggets of development from the Wiz Kids.

Trevor Booker struggled in the stat sheet with early foul trouble in the Wizards’ 102-92 loss to the Mavericks. But he was assigned to guard Dirk Nowitzki, so 11 minutes, zero points, three rebounds, four fouls is understandable since he held his defensive ground on several possessions (but the two free-throws he missed didn’t help). Hopefully “Cook Book” added some new recipes to his defensive capability after matching up against the German All-Star, who scored 24 points on just 11 shots, because the Wizards are expecting Booker to be able to guard anything from a 3-man to versatile bigs like Nowitzki, and more. Overall, Booker’s 33 points on 14-19 shooting with 24 rebounds, three turnovers and 10 fouls over the first two games of the current four-game road trip (against Oklahoma and Memphis) is an encouraging sign toward his development and could be a threat to Andray Blatche’s minutes.

And as Blatche begins to play hurt, but sometimes make nice plays, but often regress, and usually take bad shots, but still give decent effort, sometimes, another Wizards big man has started showing up with opportunity and confidence fueled by minutes. Read more »

People like to compare the hard times, and the glory, of one professional sports franchise to the next, especially the hard times. It seems to be an inherent need for humans make comparisons, however irrelevant they may be. Think of the females, and males, going out to a club or a bar who are unnecessarily judging each other by looks, good and bad. With so many pheromones in the air, the nightlife chase can be just as much of a sport. So when competition comes into play, we compare even more.

Are the Portland Trailblazers going through a more rough time than the Washington Wizards right now? Perhaps, because the expectation of their success was higher, but I don’t buy the excuse of getting spoiled by continued playoff appearances. Or the LA Clippers, the oft-compared West Coast counterpart of the Wizards? The toils of Los Angeles’ other team have been just as painful, except if Dan Snyder were the owner of the Wizards. Actually, Donald Sterling is probably worse than Snyder. Imagine that. What about the Houston Rockets? Had they come to grips that Yao Ming would never be the same only to have him suddenly gone for good as Wizards fans just experienced with Gilbert Arenas? At least Washington got … Rashard Lewis.

It’s hard to compare the strife of one team to the next because those situations have nothing to do with each other. They have to do with the fans and those in the affected city. So Washingtonians, raise a toast to Portlanders and Houstonians and some Los Angeleans, and vice versa, and also to all those maligned fans of other hapless franchises. And while you’re at it, raise a toast to China, where millions have perhaps lost a basketball icon in Yao … and are left with a currently injured Yi Jianlian to carry to torch. Before Saturday night’s game versus the Miami Heat, Yi spoke on the injury of his fallen comrade.

It’s hard to hear Yi in the video below, but he says that the broken foot Yao recently suffered, ending his season and potentially his career, was pretty upsetting. But Yi says that Yao is also tough with a strong heart and that he doesn’t think he’ll just walk away from the game. When asked if he thinks Yao will come back, Yi says, “I hope so.”

[Flip Saunders at the moment of outrage over a questionable call.]

In some regard a basketball game can come down to a single play or a single call, in most it doesn’t.

A small fraction of the narrative for the Wizards’ 93-85 loss to the Charlotte Bobcats came with less than two minutes left in the game. Yi Jianlian, who had played measured, focused defense all night long — to the tune of six blocks in 32 minutes off the bench (although, only one defensive rebound in that time, more on that issue later) — saw Crash Gerald Wallace approaching the lane that he occupied. Yi planted his feet, outside of the restricted area, and absorbed the contact. One ref seemed to want to whistle a charge, another a blocking foul; the triumvirate conferred on the call.

NBA referee Rodney Mott emerged from the huddled discussion, looked in the direction of the scorer’s table/Wizards bench, gave a prolonged wry smile, hesitated, and then signaled Yi for a blocking violation. Not exactly the tact you’d like to see from a referee making a crucial call — almost making a mockery of a scene and a seemingly wrong call that the Wizards’ bench didn’t find too comical.

“Yea, it was a terrible call,” said Flip Saunders after the game. “Instead of it going the other way, now it ends up being an eight point game. There’s a difference when it’s two minutes to go and and it’s six.”

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[Note:  This is the second installment of "Player Lock", where we at Truth About It focus on one player for an entire game.  The first installment focused on Gilbert Arenas.]

Yi Jianlian had to be feeling the pressure Wednesday night.

It was Asian Heritage Night at the Verizon Center, which meant there was an increased number of Asian fans and media watching his every move.   Across the floor, there was a man from his native country in Yao Ming, who already draws his fair share of Asian fans wherever he goes, let alone in Washington D.C. on Asian Heritage Night.   To make things even more interesting, there were going to be millions of basketball fans back home in China, watching the country’s biggest basketball stars go head-to-head.

So I chose to dedicate this version of the “Player Lock” series to Yi, because I wanted to see if he crumbled under pressure, rose to the challenge, or was just indifferent to it all.  I got my first indication of how Yi was feeling about 35 minutes before game time when I saw him holding court in front of several members of the Chinese media.

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Michael Imperioli voice: That’s cool. John Wall just poured Yi a shot. What can your point guard do?… nuthin.

This here was my favorite play of the night because all five Wizards seemed to know where they were going and moved with purpose–not always a given. Hard screens were set, tears were shed, and Yi Jianlian drilled a 17 footer. The Wizards ran this out of a timeout midway through the second quarter in a sideline out of bounds situation.

1) The Wizards begin with Hinrich inbounding and Armstrong, Wall, Yi, and Thornton (who had a very nice game) standing in a line across the free throw-line-extended. Hinrich enters the ball to Wall who is coming off a perfunctory Armstrong screen, while Yi goes away from the space he wants to use by heading down to the block.

2) After freeing up Wall, Armstrong heads down to set a pick for Yi. Meanwhile, Thornton crosses through the middle of the court and Hinrich makes his way along the baseline. These two cuts are meant to clear out the middle of the court and occupy the potential help defenders as Yi comes up for a high screen and roll with Wall. Because Yi himself is coming off of a screen, his man is trailing more than he normally would, so he will be unavailable for a hard hedge on Wall. Instead, he’ll sluff off of both Yi and Wall to prevent penetration as any help is occupied by the Hinrich-Thornton crossing action.

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Without John Wall and Yi Jianlian, the Wizards’ marketing reach beyond D.C. would be pretty much zilch. No sponsor will touch Gilbert Arenas (and rumors of him signing with Under Armour have yet to come to fruition — they, like any other potential sponsor of Arenas, would be wise to wait and see what he has left basketball-wise), and no one else on the roster has much pull with advertising dollars. Any other lottery pick, had the lottery balls/envelopes/combinations not fallen in the Wizards’ favor, would have brought a small fraction of Wall’s marketing clout, if any.

Yep, the respective arrivals of Wall and Yi have paid immediate dividends for Ted Leonsis’ bunch. So keeping this in mind, let’s run down some of the recent marketing buzz surrounding the Wizards’ main names in the selling game.

In case you haven’t noticed, media access to Wall takes a different, more controlled path … mostly resulting in his very own media session before and after games like head coach Flip Saunders. All other players are made available in the locker room in both instances on an ‘as-the-media-can-get-to-them’ basis.

For Wall’s post-game media sessions in the press room, a bottle of Gatorade is strategically placed and waiting for him at the table where he sits (the same isn’t done for Saunders’ pressers — CORRECTION NOTE: Gatorade was present for Saunders’ presser after the Cavaliers game). I’ve yet to see Wall take a swig of the Gatorade (unlike what you might see a NASCAR race winner do). It’s safe to say that by the time he speaks, Wall isn’t in dire need to quench his thirst.

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[Editor's note: Stephen D. Riley covered the Wall-Jennings matchup on TAI from John's perspective, now here's Rashad Mobley with a look from Brandon's perspective in his series "From The Other Side." -Kyle]

By the time John Wall’s name is announced as the Wizards’ starting point guard on their home opening night against Philadelphia 76ers, he will have received more than enough advice.  His family is telling him how to manage his life, his friends are telling him how to spend his money and where to hang out, his teammates are saying get me the ball in my sweet spot, the coaches (especially Sam Cassell) are telling him how to be an effective point guard in the NBA.  Hell, I’m sure even his twitter following has chimed in with their clueless, but well-intentioned advice.

After my visit to the Milwaukee Bucks locker room before their preseason matchup with the Wizards, it looks like Wall will have two more people to take advice from:  Head Coach Scott Skiles and second year guard Brandon Jennings.

Skiles coached Jennings during his rookie year, so he knows first-hand about the ups and downs involved with a rookie running the show.  But prior to that, Skiles enjoyed a 10-year career in the NBA (including one year with the Bullets), where he averaged 11 points and 6.5 assists, and dished out 30 assists in one game (an NBA record).

Jennings, much like Wall will do this year, was given the responsiblity of running the Milwaukee Bucks in his first season.  He exceeded expectations in the regular season by averaging 15.5 points and 5.7 assists, and then in the playoffs he continued his solid play by raising his scoring average to 18.7 points (his assists dropped to 3.6, but Andrew Bogut was hurt, so he gets a pass).  Much like Skiles, Jennings also picked  up an NBA record along the way, by dropping 56 points on Golden State–the most ever by a Milwaukee Bucks rookie.

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A D.C. pic, commentary, and links …

[Shaw Library: 7th St. & Rhode Island Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. - K. Weidie]

So the Wizards lost to the Chicago Bulls on Friday night, putting their preseason record at 2-1. They got out-rebounded 48-32 and after the game, Wizards coach Flip Saunders said it wasn’t so much a result of the three-guard lineup. Via Wizards Insider:

Saunders said the disparity had nothing to do with size or inexperience. “Our bigs played really lethargic, very tired tonight. Very much with a lack of commitment. We have to play harder than the team we’re playing against. We can’t afford to let teams play harder than us, because we’re young and we’re going to make mistakes. And you have to make up for those mistakes with effort plays.”

“MESSAGE!” — And Flip was calculated with his message or call-out to Andray Blatche (three rebounds in 25 minutes), JaVale McGee (five rebounds in 18 minutes), and Yi Jianlian (three rebounds in 19 minutes off the bench). Of course, these numbers don’t tell the full story, exactly how many rebounds the Wizards allowed their assigned opposition to get.

Rebounding will be an increasingly developing theme until it’s not. How’s that for analysis? Read more »

Wizards GM Ernie Grunfeld addressed the media on Thursday afternoon and the major theme of his remarks was the team is in the “beginning of a new era.” While the most newsworthy item took place when the cameras were off, Grunfeld did give highly informational updates on various players.

Here Ernie talks about how John Wall will handle the extra attention placed upon the number one draft pick and discusses the games of the new youngsters:

Grunfeld details why the Wizards brought in two former lottery picks, Yi Jianlian and Adam Morrison:

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When the New York Knicks signed 7″1′ Russian center Tomofey Mozgov to a 3-year, $9.7 million contract in early July, I, like many of you, gave a big ‘Huh?’ Part of that is the result of people, myself included, not being as aware of international prospects. The other part was that Donnie Walsh and the Knicks seemingly did it under the cover of darkness.

As was pointed out at The Painted Area, if other teams suspected Mozgov’s interest in playing in the NBA this season, as opposed to staying with his Russian club, BC Khimky Moscow, and getting more seasoning, there would have been more competition for his services. And especially curious when you consider that the Knicks signed Mozgov while the New Jersey Nets and their new Russian owner were licking their wounds from losing LeBron.

The Painted Area also called Mozgov the best free-agent candidate, factoring his youth of 24 years, behind Brendan Haywood and Darko Milicic, and described him as a “powerful finisher.” Well, not so much against Yi Jianlian (according to the visual eye, not necessarily a FIBA referee). For an explanation, let’s go to the GIF machine …

After a drive by Russian guard Dmitry Khvostov, on which Yi helps off of Mozogv, the ball is dished to TimoFey who has the baseline and an open path to the basket. But hold those Russian horses, the athletic Yi whips around and ain’t scared to meet young Timmy at the rim.

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[Linas Kleiza hops past Yi Jianlian on his way to a game-high 30 points. Photo/FIBA]

On Tuesday, in their FIBA 2010 knock-out stage opener, Yi Jianlian and China took on Linas Kleiza and a strong, undefeated Lithuania team. In many ways, this contest followed the same script seen in the China-Puerto Rico game. China jumped out to a quick 16-5 lead with contributions from Wang ZhiZhi, Sun Yue, Liu Wei, Wang Shipeng, and Yi. China held a 22-17 lead at the end of the first quarter. That lead wouldn’t last much longer, however. With 4:52 left in the second quarter, Robertas “The Shark” Javtokas gave the Lithuanians a one-point advantage — one they wouldn’t surrender. China’s 11-3 run in the 4th quarter pulled them within five, but it was too little, too late. Final score: 78-67 Lithuania, who advanced to the FIBA quarterfinals to face Argentina, who edged Brazil 93-89 in Tuesday’s nightcap.

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