FanHouse SunYue

What kind of welcome is this, America? Sun Yue, who prefers to be known as the Monkey King and not the Chinese Magic, signed a small two-year deal with the Lakers Wednesday, and gladhanded the local press. Hours later, reports the Orange County Register's Janis Carr, Sun visited a local hospital due to illness. He was diagnosed with mononucleosis. He won't be playing for a while.

Carr glibly notes mono is referred to as the "kissing disease"; as someone who suffered the brutal affliction in high school, I can verify that wives' tale. (Small joke.) It can be debilitating, depending on the severity. Exhaustion is a major symptom, and exhausation is typically bad in conjunction with professional athletics. (Except bowling.) No word on how long this will keep Sun in street clothes, but a month or two seems right.

All told, I imagine Phil Jackson hadn't planned on riding Sun hard in November: Derek Fisher, Jordan Farmar and Sasha Vujacic are capable of starting for this team. Simply finding minutes for Sun at the NBA level would have a challenge, and I imagine the Monkey King had a date with the NBDL anyway. The real impact will be in Sun's social life. Even L.A. girls won't touch a dude with mono. Poor guy.

That's Mike Conley Jr getting Tayshaun'd by Sun Yue, a Chinese prospect, at the Las Vegas Summer League. Yue was drafted 40th overall by the Lakers this past June, but you'll have to wait at least another year before you see his NBA highlights. From CRIENGLISH.com:

A senior official with the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team has confirmed that Chinese player Sun Yue will not appear on the NBA teams line up in the coming season, website cn.yahoo.com reported.

Mitch Kupchak, general manager of the Lakers, said on Sunday that no contract with Sun has been signed, he will remain in his current team, Beijing Aoshen, for at least one more year.

Yue is 6-9 but has the ball-handling and passing skills of a point guard, which makes him an extremely interesting prospect for whenever he does arrive, especially in the Lakers' triangle offense.

Research question: What's the deal with Chinese basketball players these days?

Hypothesis: They are getting taller.

Observations: With two players from China getting nabbed in last week's draft, we now have a reasonable sample of data points with which to work. This study includes past NBA players Mengke Bateer (6'11") and Wang ZhiZhi (7'1"), current player Yao Ming (7'6"), draftees Yi Jianlian (7'0") and Sun Yue (6'9"), plus future NBA star Sun Ming Ming (7'9"), currently slated to play in Mexico next year.

Analysis: Plotting these data points (in inches) and applying a standard regression (red line), we can see that in the near future the heights of Chinese NBA prospects will literally be off the charts.


These results may seem surprising, but not when one considers the fact that Chinese kids have been brushing their teeth with toothpaste laced with HGH.