Basketball = Freedom

China's censored news media takes a stand for freedom, urging Yi Jianlian to ignore his agent's concerns about playing in Milwaukee. "Yi, stand up and speak for yourself," China Daily said, citing an article in the Beijing Evening Post. "Don't hesitate anymore and don't let anybody control your life."

Of course, an alternative interpretation is that it really is Yi who doesn't want to play for the Bucks, the Chinese government is trying to pressure Yi to go to Milwaukee (perhaps as part of an invasion plot in conjunction with Venezuelan space terrorists), and this business about Dan Fegan is just an effort to give Yi a face-saving way of backing out.

Comments

Once David Stern decided that he would not allow Yi to rebuff Milwaukee lightly, it was virtually certain that the Chinese would force Yi to go. With Beijing 2008 on the horizon, the last thing that the Chinese want is for the NBA to have ill-feelings towards Chinese Basketeball. Basketball clearly will be one of the marquee events at the 2008 Games, unless David Stern decided that he wanted to water them down.

Posted by Ephus | July 10, 2007 5:37 PM

What team would be willing to trade for him?

Posted by blah | July 10, 2007 6:12 PM

"What team would be willing to trade for him?"

The Sixers in a heartbeat. They tried fiarly hard prior to the draft, according to what the team has been feeding the local news.

Posted by Dantheman | July 10, 2007 10:14 PM

Interesting Yi speculation which suggests it's Fegan and his China team (as opposed to the Chinese govt.) that's driving the effort to get Yi out of MIL.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | July 11, 2007 11:28 AM

The Chinese government wants to use him as a spy to get Wisconsin's secret cheese curd recipe.

Posted by Gus | July 11, 2007 12:37 PM