This has been known for a month and was confirmed by our Chinese “scouts” who posted their report on Yi last week. They also thought he was born in 1985.

1 MORE DAY !!!

Let’s hope it does not come to that! Just keep the faith for another day!!

Wait. Aren’t we young enough already? 19 or 22? Does it really matter? He’s played against inferior competition for a while now. That is what is most concerning. Can he do it against better competition?

I will wait to see if we are #1 or #2 and if so, I won’t care a lick about Yi’s age. I have a “hunch” he probably is older than he says. After the Landis Tour De France drug scandal, cheating in the Olympics, Bonds and major league baseball with steroids/HGH, even the little league ball player from the Dominican Republic who was much older than he said, I’m a bit jaded when it comes to these stories.

bceltfan,

Your right.

just what we need…a poor man’s yao ming

Draft Express also has him lasting until nine, if he lasts past five I will be surprised.
Also, they have Brewer going 7th to the T Wolves. AFTER Noah.
So judging by all that, Yi could be 65 for all we know.

This has been an open secret for awhile. The problem with Yi isn’t his age, it’s that the poor level of competition in the CBA has kept him from having to improve his game. This is also why the Chinese National team won’t be better in time for the Beijing Olympics. The reason Yi is actually older is because they didn’t want to lose him to the NBA earlier, so they continued to keep changing his birthdate to fall below the minimum age. Yi didn’t have much control over it so he had to just accept it.

That being said, I believe Yi has some international experience and he’s certainly more advanced than a high schooler. I probably wouldn’t equate him with a four-year college senior, though he may be close. Regardless, Yi will have to deal with a lot of things his first season unrelated to basketball on the court. Just watch “Year of the Yao” and you’ll see.

Regardless of who we pick there will be an adjustment period. There are players in this draft who are more NBA ready than Oden or Durant. The problem is that they don’t have the upside that these two have.

In the case of Yi, he too will need time to adjust to the NBA. The speed at which a player acclimates to the NBA game will be a factor of athleticism, basketball IQ, skill level, level of prior competition, size and degree of committment. The language barrier could present additional problems for Yi as well as the likely “cultural shock”.

Not mentioned recently but worthy of consideration is the term “level of competition”. Players in major conferences where the average athleticism and skill level is higher are thought to be more “game ready” than standouts at small schools. There is one other consideration often neglected.

Was this standout the only star on his team or was he surrounded by other stars? Why is this important? Because of opposing defensive focus. Even a small school player can get “big school” defensive attention if he is the primary offense on his team. In this scenario a star is routinely guqarded by as many as 5 opposing players. Stop him and you win the game.

Likewise, one must be careful not to be overly influenced by scoring average, per se. One needs to see what the shooting percentage is, what type of scoring this player engages in, whether that type of scoring will be successful in the NBA, as well as total skill set, size, athleticism, strenghts and weaknesses.

With these criteria, Al Thornton gets high marks and may be worthy of a top 10 selection and may be more NBA ready than many that will be drafted below him.

I’d stay away from Yi if he is 22. Yes age does matter. A guy who is doing very well in a lessor league at 19 might be a prospect. Doing that well at 22 is something else entirely. It’s like in baseball where some 25 year old is ripping up AAA. that means less then the 18 year old doing decently in AAA…

Mosqq, it would seem that Thornton may well be “Rondo-like” to the C’s this year in that he’s very high on their radar for this draft. I could see them trying hard to get him in the middle of this draft.

While Brewer may be this year’s best version of Ron Artest, I think that Al Thornton could receive similar consideration. While coming up a bit short in defensive comparison, Al Thornton seems to do everything else well (at least at the collegiate level).

celty86, I like your “Rondo-like” comparison but I don’t think that Thornton will last to the middle rounds. I fully expect that he’ll go 10-12 if not sooner. The Celtic’s can’t be the only team infatuated with Al.

It’s only been “speculated” that Yi is 22 years old. Could this AGE smokescreen be an attempt to discourage interest in YI? If so, it’s probably going to disappear by draft day. If it’s another diversionary ploy, the bomb was dropped too early to create the type of panic intended.

Draft Express has been bashing Yi for over a year. Their scout in China really does not like him. They have him ranked lower than anyone else. They are notorious for trying to stir the pot. Remember last year’s draft, when they pissed off Tyrus Thomas by predicting he would drop to 7 and be taken by the Celtics (how I wish that were true). Plus this rumor of Yi’s age has been around for a couple of years. So what if he’s 22. Are we afraid he’s not going to grow anymore? The guy is 7’ tall, for heaven sakes. To me he has emerged as the consensus 3 or 4 pick in the draft, and DE is just trying to stir the pot for some reason.

moskqq, your statement is an excellent generalization of the whole draft process and applies even more to today’s and recent drafts where players spend less time in college learning how to really play the game. Also, the competition for a freshman is not as it was in those days gone by. For example, how would freshman Oden have done against 4-year college player Tim Duncan. You also mention that there are other players more NBA ready than Oden and Durant and you mention the upside of Oden and Durant. This whole year that I’ve been active in this blog the consensus seems to be that we are tired of waiting. If we get O or D there will be tremendous pressure on them to produce immediately. There seems to be a consensus that D doesn’t have an NBA-ready body. If we get one of the two and Doc holds them back to keep the pressure off them, with all that expectation, he’ll be crucified. If he concentrates on strength and conditioning for Durant, he’ll be crucified. But this would be the right way to handle the situation, of course, depending on the nature of these guys. Joe Johnson was one who was put in the fire immediately and asked to do things we wasn’t ready for (shooting three’s). Same with Kedrick Brown. When Larry Bird came Bill Fitch was sensitive to putting too much pressure on him too soon. If things work out the way we want it will be very interesting to see how the player is handled and to how he reacts and to how the fans and media react. I think Doc took unfair heat for last year and if we get what the fans and media want I think this will be an even tougher year for Doc. It will be very interesting.

I’ve seen many comments that if we get Durant we should trade PP. That seems to be incredulous to me. Dickerson even said it last night. We need a player to grow and gradually take over PP’s role. By that time PP can assume another role with the team. To say that Durant can do now what PP does makes no sense at all. Again, unrealistic expectations for a young kid.

Yi played against competition thats better than college and below the NBA. Draft express has no credibility. NBA draft.net is better, as well as chad ford.Ford goes by what he hears is going to happen.