The State of Basketball: Will Yi's Stance Set A Dangerous Precedent?

Yi JianLian the sixth overall selection in the 2007 NBA draft is refusing to play for the team who selected him, the Milwaukee Bucks. His agent, Dan Fegan, and Chen Haitao, the president of his former team, the GuongDong Tigers, have demanded a trade that would send Yi to a team on their list of "approved cities" which include Chicago, Sacramento, Golden State, both Los Angeles teams, and New York. As wrong as this may seem, I feel it is important to provide an insight into the relationship bewteen the Chinese athlete and their government as well as a brief history lesson in regards to how China's athletics have shaped its past. By doing, it will be easier to understand the mindset of Yi, considering that the Chinese government permits him to say little, if anything at all.

According to Li YongYan, an esteemed analyst of business, economy, and politics in China, the motto of the Chinese athlete is, "I owe it to the party."

In China, athletes are brainwashed into staging extravagant tributes to the political leadership of their country. For example, in Athens, during the 2004 summer Olympic games, moments after a young Chinese girl won the gold medal in singles table tennis, a Beijing TV station went into the stands to interview her parents. Without hesitation, the father told all those watching back home that his daughter was a "good Communist Party member and her success was because of the party organization."

In essence, the father was right because the government and the Communist Party own all the Chinese athletes. In the words of YongYan, "They (the Chinese athletes) are trained, funded, and sent to the Olympics and to other sporting events, such as playing in the NBA, by the China Sports Bureau, a cabinet-level ministry in the government."

It is common knowledge that competitive sports require huge amounts of spending and, in some cases, generate little, if any, revenue (just ask the Florida Marlins). Yet, despite the cost, Beijing still retains a monopoly over Chinese athletics. Why would the government of China be willing to travel down the road of Capitalism when it is now allowing private and even foreign ownership in most other industries?

"The complete control of the Chinese government over telecommunications, aviation, the postal service and defense is easy to understand: national security and high profit margin are the two chief motivations," said YongYan. "But figure-skating and weightlifting never come close to making money or contributing to territorial integrity by any stretch of imagination."

The answer lies in history. Similar to how Adolf Hitler introduced a heavy dose of Nazi propaganda into the 1936 Berlin Olympics, China's association with sports has been, and always will be, closely intertwined with politics. During the reign of Mao Zedong, Beijing boycotted all international sporting events, refusing to compete along side both those Chinese who lived across the Taiwan Strait and his enemies from the West.

In the late 1970s, sports took a back seat as China had more pressing needs; revitalizing agriculture, for example. Then, in the early 1980's, something unexpected happened. China's women's volleyball team overcame seemingly unbeatable odds and clinched three consecutive world titles over a three-year span, winning the World Cup, the World Championship and the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

The Chinese people were so inspired that a group of impressionable students took to the Beijing streets in celebration, labeling these victories as a "stimulus to revitalizing the Great China." To the delight of veteran propagandists, they found that athletic achievement provided a much-needed outlet for Chinese citizens to express their discontent with society.

Presently, it excites the Chinese people when their country's national anthem is played in a Western stadium. "When a red five-star flag is raised, the republic's past humiliation is washed away and replaced with a pride that every Chinese is thrilled to share,” said YongYan. "The 'Sick Man of East Asia' is now strong, is fast, and stands high and proud. Thus national prestige suddenly finds a new support in the able-bodied, professional athletes - instead of the export of communist ideology."

Thus, the government has increased the budget for competitive sports, although exactly how much is spent has never been clear. The most recent public budget report from the Treasury Ministry is from the year 2000 which states that a total of 2.6 billion yuan ($3.4 million) was allocated to "culture, sports and broadcasting."

This now brings us to the topic of Yi JianLian. Before the draft, Fegan and Haitao compiled a list of cities which they felt would best suit Yi. The Bucks not only weren't on the list, but they weren't even allowed to watch Yi workout in LA. Nevertheless, when it came time for Milwaukee to pick, sure enough, they took Yi, creating a major headache for the 19-year-old (supposedly) Chinese phenom and the NBA.

In his latest statement, Haitao said to the Chinese press on Tuesday that the lack of playing opportunity was the primary reason for Chinese officials' reluctance to allow Yi to sign with the Bucks.

"This is not - as media reports have said - because Milwaukee, as a city with very few Chinese people, is not good for Yi's commercial development," Haitao said. "Rather we want to find a team suitable for Yi's growth. That's the root of the problem."

Yeah, right. Yi plays as a power forward, a spot where the Bucks struggled with injuries last season and at times had undersized Ruben Patterson playing the position, so I don't believe that reasoning for a second. In addition, returning to the team is 6’11” Charlie Villanueva, who is coming off surgery to repair a torn labrum in his right shoulder. Seven-footer Andrew Bogut, the top pick in the 2005 NBA draft, is now firmly entrenched at center and plays a much different game than Yi, who is more perimeter-oriented and often faces the basket. Did Haitao notice that the Bucks were 28-54 last year and haven't had a real power forward since Larry Krystkowiak was on the floor instead of sitting on the bench in a suit? So, assuming for a minute that playing time is indeed the primary motivation here, do you think playing for a contender would make the situation better?. The Bucks could move Yi to a good team, like Chicago, San Antonio, Phoenix or Dallas, where he would get almost no playing time. Wouldn't that go against everything that Haitao is trying to accomplish? Doesn't he want Yi to be in top shape for international competition? If he was to be traded to a better team, he'd be so rusty by the time the Olympics rolled around that the trainer would need to keep an oilcan nearby.

"I need to know the Chinese word for 'hogwash' so I can e-mail it without delay to Chen Haitao," writes Michael Hunt (Who's the first person I've ever known to actually be named that) of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

An NBA spokesman said the league would not comment on the situation at this time. He said NBA Commissioner David Stern was still overseeing everything alongside Bucks' officials. One published report suggested that Milwaukee general manager, Larry Harris, may visit China next week, but a Bucks official said there were no imminent plans to do so. Commissioner Stern now finds himself between a rock and a hard place because he has been trying to expand the NBA globally and China has been one of his main targets. He doesn't want to upset the Chinese government, but at the same time he won't allow his league to be taken hostage.

The problem now is that Harris' cell phone isn't exactly wearing a hole through his designer britches. Other teams like Yi, but not enough to give up what it would be worth for the Bucks to part with the sixth overall pick in one of the deepest drafts in recent history. Let's put the situation in perspective. How long did it take Yao Ming to become a good NBA player? Three to four years, depending on whom you're asking. Oh, and by the way, he just happens to be playing in Houston, home to one of North America's largest Chinese communities.

So, here's the question: who's to blame? The answer to that is not a simple one. First of all, I think what Fegan and Haitao are doing is despicable. It's an honor and a privilege to be selected sixth overall into the best league in the world. You should play for whoever was kind enough to select you, period. That said, it's the wording of the NBA's own Collective Bargaining Agreement which gave Yi the loophole that Fegan is hoping to use in order to orchestrate a trade for his client. Under the CBA, if Yi were to sign with another team in Europe, for example, the Bucks would own his rights. However, if he didn't sign with another club and played only for China's national team, he could re-enter the draft in 2008.

Yes, what Yi's camp is trying to pull off is wrong, but no, it's not the first time something like this has happened. In 1999, Steve Francis was selected 2nd overall by the Vancouver Grizzlies. He vowed he would never play for Vancouver and was traded a few days later to the Houston Rockets. In the 2004 NFL draft, Eli Manning refused to suit up for the San Diego Chargers and was traded to the New York Giants. To complete the transaction, the Giants then selected Philip Rivers and sent him to San Diego. However, there is a major difference in Yi's case, that being the fact that he is controlled by a communist nation. Unless you are a citizen of Cuba, Haiti, or China you cannot claim that you are able to relate to Yi's situation. It should be made very clear: Yi is not in the wrong here. For all we know, he would love to play in Milwaukee, but the fact of the matter is that he will never be allowed to voice his opinion because the Chinese government won't allow it.

Now, let's turn the attention back to the Milwaukee Bucks. How in the world do you draft a player whose agent warned you ahead of time what would happen if you did? The only conceivable way that, as a general manager, you would do something like this is if you had a trade already in place that would send him to one of the teams on his list of approved cities. Otherwise, it is mind-blowing to me that Milwaukee had the arrogance to think that despite the warnings of Yi's camp, they could get him to play for their team. How could you open the door for the possibility of walking away from this debacle with literally nothing? Oh, I can just imagine the reaction from Bucks fans if Harris comes back empty-handed after the best draft since 1996.

Ultimately, Milwaukee should have passed on Yi and drafted Brandon Wright, who they claimed they fell in love with after his private workouts. Yi would have slipped past Minnesota and Charlotte (because it's hard to believe that there are two other GMs in the league stupid enough to select him when they weren't on his list) and he would have ended up in Chicago. Funny story: had the Bobcats not blown a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter against the Knicks on the last day of the season, the Bulls, who had New York's pick in the draft, would have had the sixth selection instead of Milwaukee.

In the end, I predict that the Bucks will trade Yi to another team. There's no way that Harris can tell his fans that he has nothing to show for the sixth pick in the draft. It's an unfortunate situation that Milwaukee finds itself in, but again, it's not as if they weren't warned about what would happen. Hate to say they told you so...