I won't lie, I always liked what i saw from Yi. Very smooth for his size, nice skills. Allergic to physical contact, piss poor defender, and no sense of ball movement. He really needed a Don Nelson type coach to tailor a role specifically for him.
Yi Jianlian will join Mavs in Detroit January, 9, 2012 Having dominated the D-League in his two games, Yi Jianlian got the call to join the big club Monday. The newly acquired Dallas Mavericks forward will be in Detroit for Tuesday night’s game against the Pistons after two wildly successful games playing for the team's D-League affiliate, the Texas Legends. Yi had 29 points and 13 rebounds in Sunday's 113-102 loss to the Maine Red Claws. That followed up his 17-point, 11-rebound outing in his debut Friday night. Yi was coming off a minor knee injury sustained while playing in China prior to the Mavs signing him to a one-year contract, but that appears to be well behind him. Dallas assigned Yi to the D-League team after officially signing him on Friday to work on his conditioning and get acquainted with the Mavs’ sets under Legends coach Del Harris, who coached Yi in 2008 on the Chinese national team. Dallas had also assigned forward-center Sean Williams to the Legends on Friday. He was not recalled by the Mavs. In two games in the D-League, Williams has averaged 16.3 points and 10.3 rebounds. In three games with the Mavs, Williams averaged 4.7 points and 2.0 rebounds. http://espn.go.com/blog/dallas/mavericks/post/_/id/4683274/yi-jianlian-will-join-mavs-in-detroit?
A good pickup by Mavs. I was at the Friday night Austin Toros game and Yi did not dominate. He was clearly better than everyone on the floor, but seemed a little rusty. He played a lot of minutes and it was clear that they were force feeding him the ball when he was in the game. Sean Williams plays a lot like Terrence. You can tell he has the tools and athleticism, but in between the occasional big play, he spent a lot of time complaining and walking up the court. Leaving his team playing 4 on 5.
