Yi Jianlian

[Slava]

I'm honestly more stunned that a thread about Yi **** Jianlian has 9 pages than i am about the Lakers signing Yi **** Jianlian.

This should not be a surprise. This is on par with the few other Asian NBA players. Jeremy Lin gets 10+ pages on the Charlotte Hornets realgm forum as well as the Lakers forum a couple years ago.

Its weird, I don't think the Asians flock to support players from mainland China as much as they do with Lin. I can't even remember Yao having that kind of rabid following.

[Wavy Q]

Jeremy Lin's asian following is mostly asian americans, not mainland Chinese. Yao prime wasn't during the social media era, no twitter no facebook no instagram etc.

[anthoang]

Yao was HUGE. Yao had his own website with it's own forum -- the English version and the Chinese version. Yao fans didn't have to go to realgm to get their fix. Any time Yao played in a city outside of Houston, you would see a huge increase of Asians in the stands.

The Rockets and Yao were treated like Rockstars whenever they traveled to China.
Lin gets the same treatment when he goes to China and Taiwan in his annual summer visit.

[Landsberger]

Yi is interesting. He's a big who can stretch the floor. He's had a mental approach issue in the past, which is nearly impossible to reverse IMHO. We shall see if he makes through training camp. My guess is yes for purely $$ issues and fan base in China.

It would be nice to have him become a decent 10 and 5 player off the bench but that's a lot to ask I think.

[MrWaffles]

Your time as a Laker is coming to a close Yi.

[larry14r]

Your time as a Laker is coming to a close Yi.

We'll see about that because we survived Sacre for 4 years.

[Karmaloop]

Your time as a Laker is coming to a close Yi.

We'll see about that because we survived Sacre for 4 years.

We also have significantly more center depth than we did the last few years.

[slifersd]

Its time to put the theory of "we signed Yi Jianlian for marketing purposes" to the test now. The guy looked nothing like an NBA player during the preseason so far, and I have a hard time seeing him killing it during practice, considering how far down the rotation he is right now. If we didn't sign him to sell jerseys, we should cut him. And if we keep him, then that should tell us all we need to know about why we signed him to begin with.

[Kilroy]

Your time as a Laker is coming to a close Yi.

We'll see about that because we survived Sacre for 4 years.

Small sample size but I feel like Sacre was always a better basketball player than Yi is right now.

[lake_show]

I'd like to see more of him before we made a decision. He's played 26 mins in these first 4 preseason games. 13 mins tonight, and 13 mins in his first 3 games combined.

He played well though. He had a couple pick and pop opportunities where he made one and missed one. Looked really good and confident on the one he made. He also had that play where he caught the ball at the three point line and took his man off the dribble before getting fouled on the dunk finish.

I'd be interested to see if Luke would be willing to start him in one of these games so we can actually see what he's capable of. He goes from end to end really well and he seems to have a wider base than a guy like say Mozgov. He was there to force that jump ball late. I think he did a pretty solid job patrolling the paint overall.