China - Yi Jianlian Is Chad Ford's New International Crush

From www.aolsportsblog.com
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Yi Jianlian is a 7-foot, 230-pound center for the Guangdong Southern Tigers of the Chinese Basketball Association. TIME Magazine called him "The Next Yao Ming" in 2003. ESPN.com's Chad Ford has also fallen in love with him.

Ford, you might recall, was one of the biggest Darko Milicic fans in the world when the mysterious Serb entered the NBA draft in 2003. In fact, Ford's enthusiasm for Darko before he turned into a historic draft bust could end up being his legacy when it's all said and done. Regardless, he's really high on Jianlian.
With more than a billion people in the basketball-crazed nation of China, it seemed likely someone would follow in Yao's footsteps...That time is now...Yi Jianlian is here...Yi is a top prospect and he's 7 feet tall, but he's not a center like Yao. In fact, as draft prospects go, he's more like Kevin Durant than he is like Greg Oden.

If he can find the right home (as I discuss in today's blog entry), Yi has the potential to be every bit the star Yao is, both in America and abroad.
As talented and as influential as Yao Ming? I'm sorry, but that's just crazy. I don't care how skilled Yi Jianlian is; you can't expect another player to come out of China and have the same kind of athletic and cultural impact that Yao has had on the game of basketball internationally. Lightning doesn't strike twice.

You know, the more I read Chad Ford, the more I become convinced that he might be solely responsible for the influx of international ballers in the NBA. As Bill Simmons once joked, all of the international guys that turn into busts once they come into the League should be forced to live with Chad Ford.
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