Jottings from the Granite Studio

Never mess with karma on the week of the Buddha’s birthday. The Boston Celtics openly tanked the last two months of the NBA season, convinced star Paul Pierce to go on an extended month-long vacation in which the Men in Green won only one game…all in the hopes of landing Ohio State man-child Greg Oden or a high-flying superhuman rubber band named Kevin Durant. Now the Celtics will get neither. In shades of 1997 (when the C’s had a 35% shot at Tim Duncan), the lottery system used by the NBA to determine the top 13 picks in June’s draft shafted the Celtics. Mormon GM Danny Ainge let fly with a loud “Dadgummit” but most other Celtics fans–including this one in Beijing refreshing ESPN.com every four minutes yesterday morning–found ourselves voicing something a little more cathartic.

Now we are picking number 5. Number 5 is not bad, but when you have two potential FRANCHISE players at the top of the board, number 5 is not high enough. Sometimes I swear we should scrap the draft and just go the English Premier League route–sign ‘em when they’re 11 and hope they don’t turn out to be arrogant whiny posers like Ashley Cole.

Which brings us to the China portion of this rant. Number 5 means the Celtics have a decent shot at landing (almost) 7′0 Guangdong Tiger forward and McDonald’s spokesman Yi Jianlian. I like Yi. I watched him play in the CBA this year, he has great moves—very athletic for a 7-footer with a nice outside shot. Of course that was against CBA competition. Wang Zhizhi was a complete bust in the NBA but in the recent Bayi-Guangdong CBA finals, Wang looked like Shaq.

But Yi’s been pretty impressive in pre-draft workouts in LA. Yao Ming himself thinks that Yi could be another Amare Stoudamire. ESPN draft-wizard Chad Ford is very high on Yi and thinks the 19-year old has a chance to be even better than Yao. (It should be noted that there’s buzz going around the league about some Chinese official monkey business concerning Yi’s actual age.)

According to Ford, “For better or worse, Yi represents a new style of Chinese player more influenced by Alan Iverson and Tracy McGrady than Yao Ming.” (Check out Chad Ford’s analysis here. You need to be an ESPN Insider to read the whole report but the “public” page contains several great videos of Yi working out in LA.) What’s amazing is the number of different players to whom Yi has already been compared, some good and some not so good. So far he’s been called “The Chinese version of”…Amare, Kevin Garnett, Nowitzki, Tracy McGrady, Brad Lohaus, and Nikoloz Tskitishvili. (Who was once drafted by the Nuggets ahead of Amare, whoops.)

Not that Yi seems worried. A piece by Ford for ESPN: The Magazine shows Yi getting a jump on the “cultural transition” from the SEZ to the NBA. The young forward, who speaks English much better than Yao did at a similar juncture in his career, has already been getting his taste of life for an NBA “playah.”

Yi Jianlian strolls into PACE, one of those hip restaurants nestled in an LA canyon. Dressed in Sean John jeans, a suede coat and black Jumpman shirt and shoes, he looks every bit the rock star, projecting much more native Angeleno than Chinese export. Fitting the image, he laughs as one of his agents regales the table with stories about 14-year-old girls who cry when they spot him in public. And he’s already walked the red carpet at the premieres of the Spider-Man and Shrek threequels, and hobnobbed with Eddie Murphy and Cameron Diaz.

Ah, youth.

Yi will be a great player. I just don’t think he’ll be a great player in Boston. Boston is a weird place–not always in a good way–and I don’t think the wingnuts who call into WEEI are ready for the next “savior of the franchise” to be a walking swizzle stick from Shenzhen. I just don’t see it. (Never mind what happens when on draft day, the Celtics try to get Yi to wear a green hat (绿帽子）in front of a live international television audience…)

Bill Simmons–one of my favorite writers and who, like me, is a 30-something pop culture/sports fanatic from New England–is also less than enthusiastic about Yi.

“Patrick the Bartender (one of the greats) stopped by for some Ping-Pong ball commiseration and offered the obligatory “Christ, what do we do now?” question. It lingered in the air like a stale fart. None of us knew what to say. Finally, the Bug lightened the mood by responding, “Whaddya think about rolling the dice with the Chinese guy at 5?”

And Patrick the Bartender responded in all seriousness, “If he’s still there.”

If he’s still there.

In the span of two hours, I’d gone from dreaming about Greg Oden or Kevin Durant saving the Celtics to Patrick the Bartender earnestly wondering whether the Chinese Brad Lohaus would be available at No. 5. If he’s still there. Eventually, those four words will be funny. Just not right now. Comedy equals tragedy plus time.”

Of course, Simmons has been wrong before…lest we forget, this is what he had to say in 2002 about Yao:

“One more thing: Years from now, we will remember “Yao Ming over Jay Williams” the same way we remember “Bowie over Jordan,” “Traylor for Nowitzki,” “Carroll for McHale and Parish,” “Aguirre over Thomas” and every other great draft day blunder in NBA history. I’m not just predicting it, I’m guaranteeing it. Think about it. At best, Ming develops into a bigger, more athletic Rik Smits. Fine. But then you throw in Yao’s adjustment problems (going from China to the United States — yikes), his laid-back demeanor (what happens when NBA players start pushing him around, elbowing him and intimidating him?), his inability to play in the low post, and the way he’ll struggle fitting in with his teammates, as well as lofty expectations, inevitable problems adjusting to a higher level of competition, the fact that NBA players will go out of their way to dunk on him (just like they did with Shawn Bradley — and they ruined his confidence, too), the isolation of playing here, the meddling Chinese government … I mean, did Smits have to deal with any of those things? Can’t you picture Shaq rubbing his hands together and saying, “I’m going to dunk on that Chinese guy as much as humanly possible next season”? This is a disaster waiting to happen. Repeat: This is a disaster waiting to happen. I feel very strongly about this. Just wanted to get that heard before the jury

I disagreed with Simmons then about Yao and I think he’s wrong about Yi as well. Given the Celtic’s “luck” over the years (cf. Simmons’ Karma‘ article) they probably won’t take Yi Jianlian and Yi will go on to become “China’s Kevin Garnett” somewhere else. Seriously. Our luck is so bad right now that Danny Ainge could draft Jesus H. Christhimself (PG, Notre Dame) and he’d probably break his ankle walking to the first practice (mind the puddles). And if you think I feel sorry for myself it’s because…I do.

I will now console myself with a bowl of the morning zhou and watching the Red Sox extend their 10.5 game lead on the New York Yankees on MLB.tv.