Fifteen years ago today, at the 2007 draft, Yi Jianlian was selected by the Bucks with the 6th pick in the first round, becoming the first Chinese player to participate in the draft at the Little Green House.
The UAE's NBA career averaged 7.9 points, 4.9 rebounds and 0.7 assists per game, which was not outstanding, and even looked worthy of the status of the No. 6 show. But I always think that this is not a problem of the strength of the UAE, but that his introverted personality is related to being criticized by the media.
The UAE League has never really integrated into the NBA, he does not have the humor and talkative of Yao Ming, whether it is the national team or the Hongyuan team now, the UAE League is the nominal team boss, he is the boss but never the locker room speaker. Not to mention that he went to a language barrier and completely unfamiliar environment, which hindered his development in the NBA.
On the other hand, the UAE was more or less killed by the media at the time, and with the aura of the first round of the show, Yao Ming's successor landed in the NBA, and when he performed well, the praise came pouring in. When he continued to slump, Yi Di's taunts followed. For a big boy with an introverted personality and not good at words, it is really difficult to rush out of this strange circle for a while, Liu Xiang did not resist, not to mention Yi Jianlian.
Many people also think that the UAE League will definitely be popular if it is placed in the current NBA, in fact, I think it will not change much, because when a person cannot integrate into the environment, his performance will definitely be bad.