CHN – Bucks rookie Yi to miss rest of season with knee injury

MILWAUKEE (NBA) - Yi Jianlian of China will miss the final eight games of his rookie season in the NBA because of the knee injury he suffered last week in a game against Washington.

An MRI showed that Yi, who should be a leading player for Jonas Kazlauskas’ Chinese national team at the Olympics, has a sprained medial collateral ligament in his left knee.

The injury will not, doctors say, hurt the seven-footer Yi in his preparations for the Beijing Games.

"After I'm done resting here and I go back, the most important thing is the Olympics," said Yi in the Milwaukee Journal.

The Bucks used their first-round pick on Yi in last summer’s draft and his best play came early on.

In December, he was Eastern Conference rookie of the month after averaging 12.1 points and grabbing 6.6 rebounds.

"I look at it as being a great year," Yi said. "Coming all the way from China, and having all these new experiences, these games, and having a chance to learn, having a chance to improve.

"Right now (that’s how) I look at it, and maybe I didn't play as well as I wanted to the whole season. But the most important thing, I learned a lot and I got a lot of great experience."

FIBA