When I look at the list of potential NBA draftees, I see mostly U.S. college kids for the first time in forever, it seems. This is obviously due to the age restriction, but there is a surprising lack of overseas talent in the top tier as well. The only name that sticks out is Yi Jianlian, the Chinese big man with the quick step and a body like a willow wand. I dug up a YouTube video that pretty much shows the pluses and minuses of Yi’s NBA game, as he faced up against Pau Gasol in a Spain/China international match.
My favorite, absolute favorite part of this video is the Spanish announcer blurting “Een joor face!” in phonetic English after Pau knocks Yi a Chinese guy to the floor through sheer force of beard.
And, in the unlikely event that you are unfamiliar with Chinese hip-hop, here is a Nike commercial that demonstrates Yi’s flava.
I guess, seeing Yi’s quick step (for a big man), that he could cause some interesting matchup problems, but he sure doesn’t look like a force of any kind in the paint.
Watch David Stern manipulate and display his balls tonight at 7:30 on ESPN. Or, you can play with your own balls with Chad Forde’s draft machine. Or you could read Bill Simmons telling you who “deserves” one of the top players (hint: they wear green).
Or, you can just walk around the office shouting “Een joor face, mang!” all day. That’s what I plan to do.
Stern could just use Dan Patrick’s balls tonight, since he emasculated Dan on the radio last week…
Ha! Nice one! He has them in his pocket now, probably.
You dumbazz, watch carefully! The one knocked down to the ground was not Yi. Yi was not even on the court at the time. Yi dunked on Gasol and the whole Spanish national team, Gasol took it out on Yi’s teammates.
Wow. I feel like a real dumbazz.
I hgave a lot of Apanish relatives, Extra P, and I happen to know that the phonetic expression would have been “Iin yuur feeeeis!”
I also enjoyed “o mai gunes”.
Yes, O mai gunes was awesome.
I kind of liked how he set people up by saying “Pau, Pau, Pau” while Gasol was backing in.
Yi is #11, the guy Gasol dunks on is #12.
Believe me, my mistake has been amply documented. I’m always glad for the “strikethrough” function on my text editor.
I talked to one of my relatives in Colombia, and the key to the phrase is to roll the r. So It would actually sound like “iin jurrr feeeeeeeiss!”
I freely admit that I resorted to the popular conception of a spanish accent in an attempt to draw in casual readers. Mea culpa. My wife works for the UVA Spanish dept. so if you hadn’t pointed this out, some of her co-workers would have.