Will the Lakers get a new, improved Yi Jianlian?
— -- Chinese star Yi Jianlian might be returning to the NBA, five years after he departed. On Tuesday, ESPN's Marc Stein reported that Yi is in "advanced discussions" with the Los Angeles Lakers, who have an open roster spot and showed interest last summer.
If Yi does end up with the Lakers, can he be more successful this time?
Looking at Yi's NBA track record
Drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks sixth overall in 2007, Yi lasted just one season in Milwaukee before he was dealt to the New Jersey Nets, beginning an itinerant NBA existence. He played two years with the Nets, put in one season with the Washington Wizards after another trade and finished his five-season run with the Dallas Mavericks after the lockout.
After a poor rookie season adjusting to the NBA, Yi made progress in his second year, averaging 13.3 points and 8.3 rebounds per 36 minutes. He appeared to be on his way to contributing in the NBA, but that proved a high point. Yi's per-minute averages stagnated while his efficiency trended the wrong direction.
More than anything, inability to score efficiently doomed Yi's first stint in the NBA. He shot just 41.3 percent on 2-point attempts, and after making 48 3-pointers in his second season, he made just 21 total over the next three years. As a result, Yi's true shooting percentage peaked at .485, far worse than the typical league average around .540.
Translating Yi's Chinese Basketball Association stats
Improved efficiency is the most promising part of Yi's performance in his native China.
My translations convert a player's performance in the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) or other international leagues to their equivalent in the NBA based on the changes to players who have made that transition (or the one from the D-League to the CBA) in the past.
As compared to major domestic leagues in Europe, American players who go to the CBA see dramatic increases in the percentage of their team's plays they use, their rebound rates and their rates of drawing fouls. But because stars in China tend to get force-fed shots, their efficiency actually increases relatively little compared to European leagues.
For a player like Yi coming from China to the NBA, that adjustment works in reverse. So we can expect Yi to use considerably fewer plays than the 28.9 percent he finished last season for the Guangdong Southern Tigers, but his 57.2 percent 2-point shooting remains relatively impressive even with the adjustment.
In fact, Yi's shooting percentage inside the arc last season was identical to what Houston Rockets forward Michael Beasley did in China -- and Beasley is a 51.0 percent 2-point shooter during his last three NBA seasons.
The overall 2-point percentage translation for Yi, which also includes an age adjustment based on the development of similar players via my SCHOENE projection system, isn't quite that optimistic (48.4 percent) but still represents a huge leap forward from what Yi shot during his first stint in the NBA. As a result, his projected .518 true shooting is much closer to league average.
Overall, Yi's CBA performance translated to a .453 NBA win percentage (the per-minute version of my wins above replacement player rating, where .500 is league average and replacement level is around .410) in 2013-14, .461 in 2014-15 and .422 last year. That puts him somewhere in between those two benchmarks and around the level of a rotation player.
The big reason for Yi's decline last season is something worth watching in the NBA: he dropped off dramatically on the defensive glass, going from grabbing a robust 30.6 percent of available defensive rebounds in 2013-14 to just 21.0 percent last season. With the adjustment from the CBA to the NBA, Yi's 2015-16 rebounding would be weak for a power forward.
How Yi fits with the Lakers
Stein further reported on Wednesday that the Lakers' offer to Yi would pay him around $8 million this season. While the money isn't an issue in and of itself -- the Lakers currently have enough cap space to make that offer, most of which would have been swallowed up when they officially re-sign Tarik Black to a reported two-year, $13 million contract that uses his cap hold -- it's troubling that the Lakers are paying Yi like a key reserve.
Given the Lakers are already flush at Yi's natural position (power forward) with developing prospects Julius Randle and Larry Nance, Jr., that suggests they may expect Yi to play center. At 7-foot, he has the size for the position and has bulked up considerably since last playing in the NBA. But Yi doesn't have the instincts of a rim protector, and as noted, his defensive rebounding could be a major issue in the middle.
Yi looks like he's made the necessary improvements to perform better in the NBA than his first stint, but only in the role of power forward. If he ends up playing center, expect Yi to be a disappointment.
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