Jottings from the Granite Studio

Many, if not both, of my regular readers know that I am both a history geek AND a bit of a sports nerd, and one of the biggest events of the year for sports nerds was last night…the NBA draft.  As part of the tradition, ESPN columnist Bill Simmons does an annual ‘running diary‘ which–if you follow the NBA or NCAA basketball even a little–is a guaranteed chuckle.

A couple of related notes…

1) YJ went to Yao Ming’s press conference yesterday and reported that the first question from a Chinese journalist took the form of an inane and asinine pop quiz for the sports icon.

Chinese Reporter: “Do you know what day tomorrow is?”

Yao: “Uh, June 27?”

CR: “Correct. Do you know what happened six years ago that day?”

Yao: “Um…”

CR: “You were drafted number one by the American NBA. How does that make you feel?”

(Shot of Yao looking at his watch and wondering why Tim Duncan doesn’t have to put up with this shit…)

2) Yi Jianlian finally got his wish and was traded out of Milwaukee.  Apparently the Bucks got tired of him whining about finding Chinese food in Wisconsin.

Last year, Simmons had this to say on the Yi pick:

I’m starting to come around on Yi — the thought of him shoveling out his car in minus-10 degree weather in January while fighting back tears and screaming, “Why????? Why?????” in Chinese is delightful for some reason. Too bad they’ll trade him. If the Chinese government can torture Jack Bauer for two years, it can definitely break the Bucks.

Anyway, Yi got sent to New Jersey where he will get paid by Jay-Z and has a 99.99% chance of playing with Lebron James in two years.  Good for Yi, but it ruined what could have been a beautiful chance for cross-straits reconciliation when the Bucks selected Joe Alexander with the 8th pick.  Alexander grew up a Laowai,: born in Taiwan and raised all over Asia.  ESPN analyst Stu Scott reacted to the pick by barking out “He speaks Mandarin!” as if that somehow makes him an exotic form of Labradoodle.  With all of this in mind, one of Simmons’ readers provided this scenario:

5:37: E-mail of the night so far, courtesy of Duke in Pasadena, Calif.: “After hearing that Joe Alexander was born in Taiwan, I’m really upset about the Nets trade. How sweet would it have been to have a native Chinese player on the same team with a “native” Taiwanese player? Who would have played the role of the U.S. on the Bucks? Would Alexander claim independence from Yi, only to have Yi go to team management and tell them that there’ll be trouble if Alexander tries to move his locker away? This is a missed opportunity for a real-life sitcom … and this would have never happened if you were the GM, Simmons.” Hey, maybe there’s still time. Can we get Alexander on the Nets somehow?

Finally, on the subject of Yao and the Olympics: I figure that foot injuries are always bad news for big men with the career of Rik Smits a cautionary tale.  Yesterday, Yao said his foot was 80% healed with 20% still requiring at least a year to get back to normal.  That’s not exactly reassuring, and if you’re the Houston Rockets must be positively terrifying.  Anyway…my guess is that Yao will play “symbolic minutes” this August.  He’ll start, and play a little each game, but everybody knows that China isn’t going anywhere in the basketball competition, and Yao is better off sitting on the sidelines and acting as a mentor to the other guys rather than risk seriously messing up his career.  It’s a killer decision to have to make, though, I’m sure.