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Yi Jianlian's name has long been a household name in China, and as a leading figure in the post-Yao Ming era of China's men's basketball team, his achievements in basketball are unmatched among active athletes.
In the summer of 2011, Yao Ming announced his retirement, and Yi Jianlian, who was not yet 24 years old at the time, carried the banner of the Chinese men's basketball team without hesitation, although his performance in the NBA at the time was ridiculed by Chinese fans.
In the following ten years, although young talents such as Wang Zhelin and Zhou Qi have emerged among Chinese men's basketball players, especially inside players, after a series of international competition experiences, people have to admit that Yi Jianlian is indeed the only player who can carry the Chinese team forward.
A ruptured Achilles tendon in the 2020 season finals caused his competitive form to plummet, but even so, as long as he is on the field, he is still the anchor of the team.
CBA all-time rebounds, regular season scoring, and double-doubles top spots prove that Yi Jianlian is a player with good offensive and defensive skills, and the playoff block king shows that he is a player who can play tough battles.
Although Yi Jianlian is now a veteran who is about to turn 36, he still continues to write his own legend on the court.
Today, let's walk into the story of basketball player Yi Jianlian and explore the ordinary and great world of this Guangdong guy.
Family style, he was born to play basketball
Yi Jianlian's parents were famous handball players on the Guangdong National Games team in the 70s and 80s of the last century, and represented the Guangdong handball team in the 1983 National Games.
But just after the National Games, the Guangdong handball team was forced to disband due to performance reasons, and Yi Jianlian's father Yi Jingliu and mother Mai Meiling had no choice but to end their athlete career.
Thanks to the excellent genetics of his parents (Yi Jingliu is 1.91 meters tall, Mai Meiling is 1.73 meters tall), Yi Jianlian, born in 1987, has been very conspicuous among his peers of the same age since he was a child, and his height has grown to 1.94 meters at the age of 12.
Under the influence of his parents who were athletes, Yi Jianlian also developed a strong interest in sports since he was a child and showed great potential. However, Yi Jianlian does not like handball, but another sport that is more popular and reflects his height advantage - basketball.
However, super static talent does not mean that you can succeed, otherwise Hesheng Town would not have ended up only worthy of watching the water cooler on the Blazers, and Li Muhao would not have been bullied by Wang Zhelin, who was far less than his arm span in the CBA.
Yi Jianlian's first competition experience also confirmed this point again.
In 1999, Yi Jianlian, who was only 12 years old and 1.94 meters tall, stepped on the venue of a street basketball competition in Shenzhen for the first time. However, because Yi Jianlian had just come into contact with basketball at that time, his basic skills were still rough and his offensive means were very single, it can be said that Yi Jianlian at this time had nothing to do with basketball except for his height and looks like a basketball player.
The result was no surprise, he and his friends lost miserably in the first round and became spectators early.
It was a big blow for a 12-year-old with a dream of professional basketball, because he found that the gap between him and other players was so large, and he found that professional basketball was far from easy as he thought.
But what he didn't know was that the talent and potential he showed in the game had attracted the attention of an audience member off the court, and this person was Yi Jianlian's mentor and "Bo Le" on the road to basketball in the future - Dai Yixin.
Speaking of Dai Yixin, in fact, if he hadn't discovered Yi Jianlian, perhaps not many people in Chinese sports circles would know his name, because he was just a basketball coach at an amateur sports school.
But from the moment he saw Yi Jianlian, he discovered this piece of jade and decided that he must train this child to become a professional basketball player.
So at his insistence, Yi Jianlian finally entered a professional sports school and came into contact with formal basketball training for the first time, and in order to help Yi Jianlian realize his career dream, Dai Yixin went to many ways and asked CBA professional trainers to formulate an exclusive training plan for Yi Jianlian.
Sure enough, Yi Jianlian, who was already talented, made rapid progress in basketball technology with the help of Dai Yixin. Soon, his talent attracted the attention of Guangdong Hongyuan, who recruited him into the youth team in 2000.
In the following years, Yi Jianlian's career was step by step, not only in just three years, he achieved a gorgeous transformation from a league rookie to an MVP; At the age of 17, he got the opportunity to participate in the Athens Olympics with the Chinese men's basketball team.
A year later, in the summer, Yi Jianlian's name appeared for the first time on the starting list of the Stankovich Cup for the Chinese men's basketball team, where Yi played all five games, averaged 11.7 points per game, grabbed 4.5 rebounds, and became the team's second scorer after Yao Ming.
After this battle, Yi Jianlian officially established himself in the national team, and that year, Yi Jianlian was 18 years old.
See the first love of the light death
The year of 18 years old must be an unforgettable year for Yi Jianlian, in addition to the joy of gaining a foothold in the national team, there is another thing that makes this sunny and handsome big boy very happy, that is, in this year, he fell in love for the first time.
Yi Jianlian's first love is named Li Yahong, the same age as Yi Jianlian, and is a Xinjiang girl who entered the audience's field of vision through a modeling competition. The two exchanged phone numbers after two contacts, and soon fell in love.
But because they are both public figures, the two must keep a low profile, especially Yi Jianlian, who is already planning to participate in the NBA draft at this time, but perhaps the sweetness of first love washed the minds of the two, and the two did not choose to keep a low profile during their relationship, which gave the media the opportunity to hype the relationship between the two, which also laid the groundwork for the breakup of the two in the future.
In the two seasons before participating in the NBA draft, Yi Jianlian still played well, leading the Guangdong team to the finals twice, but unfortunately lost 1:4 to the 818 men's basketball team after Wang Zhizhi's return in the 07 season finals, and failed to fly to the other side of the ocean with a championship like his predecessors Wang Zhizhi and Yao Ming.
But this did not affect his draft market in the slightest, after all, a young player who is not yet 20 years old, has excellent static talent, and has experienced the baptism of professional leagues and international competitions, what team does not like?
Sure enough, Yi Jianlian was selected by the Bucks with the 6th pick in the first round in that year's draft, and what awaits him is the test of the highest stage of world basketball.
One thing is to say, Yi Jianlian's performance at the beginning of joining the NBA was not bad, not only quickly sat in the team's starting position, scored a double-double of 29 points and 10 rebounds against the Bobcats, but was also named the Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month in December.
If the subsequent plot continues to develop in this way, Yi Jianlian may be able to surpass Yao Ming's achievements in the NBA, and he will not have to end his NBA career so quickly.
However, the NBA of that era still paid great attention to confrontation, as an interior player Yi Jianlian suffered a lot in terms of confrontation, which greatly limited his play in the game, coupled with language and personality reasons, Yi Jianlian was quickly replaced by the similar, but stronger Villanueva and reduced to a substitute.
Coupled with unexpected injuries, Yi's performance in his debut NBA season did not live up to his talent.
Although he had four consecutive 20+ performances after being traded to the Nets in his sophomore year, injuries severely hindered Yi's performance on the court and gradually made the team lose patience with him.
In the next three seasons, Yi Jianlian gradually reduced from a potential rising star to a marginal person on the team, and "slashing 2 points and winning 1 board" became the mantra of many fans ridiculing Yi Jianlian during that time.
After the 2011/12 season, Yi Jianlian, who had no ball to play in the NBA, ended his journey in the United States and returned to the CBA.
At this time, the media and fans also found that they had not heard from Yi Jianlian and his girlfriend Li Yahong for a long time.
It turned out that the relationship between the two was over-hyped by the media because it was too high-profile, and many fans and media attributed Yi Jianlian's poor performance in the late NBA to the relationship between the two, and the two who could not withstand the pressure had broken up at the end of 08.
At this time, Yi Jianlian can be described as a double frustration in career and love, you know, at the beginning of 08, there was also news that the two were about to get married.
Don't rush the years, I won't chase when I should come
After breaking up with Li Yahong, Yi Jianlian fell into the scandal of public opinion for a long time, Liu Yifei and Dai Feifei were the heroines of the media's hype Yi Jianlian's romance.
But Yi Jianlian himself never responded to these remarks, and at this time he just wanted to focus on playing basketball well.
After ending his NBA journey and first love, Yi Jianlian, who returned to the CBA, showed strong dominance, and his training in the NBA for several seasons made him comfortable on the domestic court.
His first full season (12/13) helped the team win another championship, and he won his second Finals MVP and regular season MVP that season.
In the national team, the burden on Yi Jianlian's shoulders began to become heavier and heavier.
In the summer of 2011, Yao Ming chose to retire after endless injuries, leaving only 24-year-old Yi Jianlian and 34-year-old veteran Wang Zhizhi on the inside line. At this time, they are about to face the test of the 26th Asian Championships.
Just two years ago, the Chinese men's basketball team without Yao Ming had already lost to Iran in the final, Yi Jianlian scored only 11 points in the final, and the smiles of Du Feng and Sun Yue on the podium made the men's basketball team the target of criticism from fans and the media.
In this competition, Yi Jianlian and the Chinese men's basketball team both need a chance to redeem.
25 points, 16 rebounds and 6 blocks, this is Yi Jianlian's answer sheet handed over in that final, 70-69, the Chinese men's basketball team narrowly defeated Jordan, regaining the dominance of Asian men's basketball.
Throughout the game, Yi Jianlian averaged 16.6 points and 10.7 rebounds per game to complete the redemption for himself and the Chinese team. As early as one year ago at the World Championships, he had already led the Chinese team without Yao Ming to the round of 16 with 20.2 points and 10.2 rebounds. After winning the Asian Cup in 11 years, the Chinese men's basketball team officially entered the era of Yi Jianlian.
And the reason why Yi Jianlian was able to be reborn in nirvana in the harsh media environment is that he must be thankful for one person, that is, his current wife, Jing Ling.
Just like her name, Jing Ling was an elf in Yi Jianlian's gray period.
After becoming popular in a modeling competition at the age of 19, Xiao Yi Jianlian was quickly selected to become the football baby of the Brazilian men's football team at the World Cup in South Africa in 2010, and her future is bright.
But since meeting Yi Jianlian, she gave up her job and has been accompanying Yi Jianlian, and her explanation and persuasion have greatly helped Yi Jianlian, a shy big boy, otherwise Yi Jianlian may not have come out of the media criticism vortex so quickly and regained a new life.
After being with Jing Ling, Yi Jianlian's basketball career can be described as smooth, and after returning to China, he not only won the CBA league MVP for three consecutive years, but also signed a contract with the NBA giants Los Angeles Lakers in 2016 and got the opportunity to return to the NBA.
Although everyone already knows the ending of the story of this return, it is not easy for Yi Jianlian to be able to re-get the invitation of the giants by relying on his own strength after leaving for 5 years.
At the beginning of the new year in 2014, the love between Yi Jianlian and Jing Ling finally bore fruit, and the two entered the marriage hall hand in hand, and Jing Ling at this time had already conceived the crystallization of love for Yi Jianlian.
Soon after, the eldest son Yi Jiale was born in the United States, and like Yao Ming's daughter, Yi Jiale obtained American citizenship from the moment of birth.
A year later, the second son Yi Junlang was also born in the United States, and it was logical to become an "American" again.
Two children in a row became "foreigners" and the couple became the object of discussion again, but Yi Jianlian is still in China, so some people say: as long as the blood is in China, the American passport is just a booklet with a few pieces of paper wrapped one by one.
Yi Jianlian chose not to respond, which can be regarded as a wise answer.
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After the birth of his two sons, Yi Jianlian did not have much company for them, Jing Ling quit his job to take care of his two children in the United States, while Yi Jianlian stayed in China to continue to fight for China's basketball career.
In the semifinals of the 15 Asian Championships, in the face of the provocation of Iranian players, Yi Jianlian showed that Iranian player Haddadi was angry and stood out as a teammate, which is very similar to the scene when Yao Ming protected him in the summer of 05; The subsequent smashing of Iranian players greatly boosted the morale of the team.
Finally, under his leadership, the Chinese men's basketball team successfully eliminated the Iranian team and defeated the Philippines team in the following final to win the Asian Championship.
In the 16 London Olympics, Yi Jianlian averaged 20.5 points per game, and although the men's basketball team did not taste a victory, his performance was definitely worthy of the national flag on his chest. At the 18 Asian Games in Jakarta, the 16-point reversal with Iran in the final made Yao Ming happy in the audience.
It can be said that after the retirement of Yao Ming and Wang Zhizhi, Yi Jianlian almost single-handedly supported the façade of the Chinese men's basketball team in the international arena. If it weren't for the Achilles tendon injury in 2020, the Chinese team, which has a healthy Yi Jianlian, may not have broken in the preliminary round of the Tokyo Olympics.
Now 36 years old, Yi Jianlian is still competitive and active in the Chinese basketball arena, although his competitive state has deteriorated greatly, his hard work and self-discipline on and off the court, as well as his conscientious professional attitude, are destined to become a monument to Chinese basketball. The championship, all-time scoring champion, and rebounding king are the best military medals of his basketball career.
Let's pay tribute to the young generals of the past, and let us pay tribute to the veterans of today. The old soldier does not die, and I would rather he wither slowly.