As the official start of the NBA season approaches, ESPN and their analysts are predicting all the stories, the drama, the teams, and the players to watch out for - and two of them are Yao Ming and Yi Jianlian.
John Hollinger - ESPN’s resident stats man and forecaster - is predicting Yao Ming will have the best Player Efficiency Rating (PER) in the league this year above players like Dwane Wade, Lebron James, and Kobe Bryant. For those of you that don’t follow basketball too much (or the stats) - that just means Yao is predicted to be one of the best players in the league this year.
Pretty cool.
Yi Jianlian, while not as impressive, is still being mentioned in the top 10 of first year players who may be in the running for the Rookie Of The Year award (although mostly due to more guaranteed playing time than anything else). Whether or not he’ll wither from the cold weather in Milwaukee versus LA where he was training for six months, and garnering a base of rabid female fans, might end up being more of the story.
