To Yi or not to Yi

by Josh Downs, Rivalfish's Foreign Correspondent

In my normal, Western Hemisphere dwelling yearly routine, I would be anxiously poring over NBA Draft websites, wondering which of the phenomenal College Basketball Stars I witnessed during the tournament the Bulls were likely to take. This year, I wasn't able to watch a single college basketball game, as I was too busy dominating the Vietnamese Professional Basketball League as the Shaq-like starting center of the Ho Chi Minh City Zephyrs. That or College Basketball isn't shown in Asia, I forget which. Nevertheless, I have come to understand a few things about this upcoming draft from what I have read and youtubed.

1. The Bulls badly need a low-post scoring presence

2. With the ninth pick, this is quite hard to come by.

With Freak of Nature and Robert Parrish Sighting Greg Oden, and NCAA Player of the year Kevin Durant slotted easily at one and two, the rest of the top ten picks are a bit of a crapshoot. Atlanta is a total mystery at the three spot. The overwhelming team need, and ridiculously thin area in the draft, calls for a point guard, meaning Mike Conley Jr. could strike gold with his early entry bid, though in any other year he would be no better than the third or fourth point guard. Do the Hawks reach up their ass for him, or do they take Marvin Williams clone Brandan Wright, challenging NBA critics who say you can't field a basketball team with a 3-3-3-3-3 lineup? The Grizzlies could easily take Conley at four as well. But with this being perhaps the most talented forward draft in history, it is safe to assume that the first couple of picks after 1 and 2 will go that way.

This puts the ball in the brain master, Danny Ainge's court. No one ever knows for sure how Danny Ainge is going to draft, as he depends primarily on Phrenology's Bastard Child, Brain typing, to fill his depth charts. Thus far, his brain-typing approach has led to super scrub Brian Scalabrine, and Sebastian Telfair, whose talents include never knowing when he is in the presence of firearms. Has anyone in the Celtics organization bothered to brain-type Ainge? After all, he is a Mormon. Ainge is said to like Mike Conley here, and this may be a more appropriate spot for him, though one never knows, he might get happy on Yi Jianlian and grab him before the Bulls get a chance to consider sinking a pick on him.

Ideally, the Bucks would follow with projected pick Corey Brewer, quickly trailed by the Timberwolves with small forward Jeff Green. The last obstacle between the Bulls and their ideal choice of three would be MJ and the Bobcats. The Cats needs all over the board would lend itself to taking the best player available, especially with the expected departure of do-it-all forward Gerald Wallace. This could mean anybody, including Joakim Noah, Spencer Hawes, Yi Jianlian, Julian Wright, or Al Thornton. For the sake of argument, let’s say Jordan does this writer a favor and snags Wright. That leaves Noah, Hawes, or Jianlian as the picks here.

Joakim Noah made the Matt Leinart mistake of being a surefire top two pick to go back to school and let the draft nitpickers find the holes in his game. The problem for them is that the holes that were exposed were the holes that they already knew about. Noah is not a pure, post-scoring presence, and his narrow shoulders dictate that he probably never will be. He is a high energy, shot blocking, and rebounding glue guy that the Bulls easily would have taken instead of Tyrus Thomas last year. This year, their needs are a bit different, and Noah doesn't really fill them. I hate it when players are punished by going back to school and dropping in the draft, but Noah should have known this was coming. When draft experts are citing your bloodlines as proof to your future success in the NBA, and your dad is a TENNIS player, you need to ride that train to cash-town and permanent Stromile Swift comparisons. If the Bulls ever sign a Roddick or an Agassi, I will officially disown them.

Spencer Hawes probably comes closest to filling the Bulls needs via the draft. He might be the most highly skilled post scorer in this draft, even more so than Oden, but when a tall white dude comes out and officially says that he sees defense as one of his liabilities, you know you will see some ugly highlights the next year. Scott Skiles runs a tight defensive ship, so despite this guy's offensive potential, the likelihood that he sees the floor is slim. Or do the Bulls sacrifice some defense, figuring that the aging Benny Wallace can pick up the slack, to get their only legitimate post scoring threat since Eddy Curry McRibbed his way out of town.

Yi Jianlian is the enigma in this year’s draft, and the same mysteries of the Orient that drove me to repatriate to Vietnam will drive some GM to pick him too high. Jianlian has the stink of bust all over him, he's been called "The Next Yao", and being the next anything in the NBA is the kiss of death. He has relatively consistently beaten up on the competition in the Chinese Basketball Association. In a related note, I have relatively consistently beaten my beginner English students in Scrabble. For a little point of reference to how unready Jianlian is for the NBA game, his team just lost in the finals to Bayi, where he was manhandled by Wang Zhizhi, a player who averaged less than 10 minutes a game in his NBA career. This guy will show all of the poise of a stunned deer in his first year, and the Bulls need someone who can contribute sooner rather than later. I can only hope that Danny Ainge will snag this guy before the Bulls are faced with the possibility of taking him.