Official Sun Yue Thread

[soleartiz]

did kobe greet him? haha like welcome to the lakers kinda thing

[FukaX]

shot blocking is nice but we will be getting alot of that from bynum and gasol.

What we need from Sun Yue is lateral quickness to stay infront of wing players.

Unless Sun has a major body transformation, i doubt we will see him able to guard small forwards that are a little thicker ala posely pp etc.

He has to be able to stay infront of the pg of the league, or i dont see him getting much minutes here.

[Sroek]

I don't like the offense that China runs. Id like to see them run some high screens for Sun Yue to get him some space to get inside the paint more and utilize his passing ability. He's a very good passer and unselfish. Set some screens for him.

The Chinese coaching team isn't maximizing their players at all. Like you said, they should definitely run the offense through Sun Yue more, have him run some side pick and rolls with Yi or pick and pops with Zhu Fangyu. He needs more freedom to create.

[crazyeights]

I thought Yue's shot was supposed to be horrible. Looked smooth to me.

I am convinced that Yue is a solid player. We've seen youtubes for the past year, but this was different.

His game is definitely more polished that I thought he would be. I liked that he's aggressive on the defensive end.... and really he made a good play on the ball for that Kobe dunk.

I thought no way that was going in. Kobe took off from too far (he looked old before that point in the game). Probably good for Sun Yue that he didn't block it, or he would be in KB's doghouse all season.

[Lakerholic44]

Sun Yue got dunked on, but so did a lot of Chinese ballers. Besides Yao, Sun was was the only other Chinese player with enough moxie within him to even contest dunk attempts. All the other Chinese ballers wanted no part of potentially being dunked on.

A few things worth noting...

Sun was never intimidated by Kobe guarding him. Kobe hounded and completely took Šarūnas Jasikevičius out of his game, but Sun never flinched and brought up the ball very effectively and smoothly against Kobe. That says a lot onto itself.

Sun shoots a deliberate set shot, and has a slow release. Not ugly, but not a good thing in the NBA. Still, Magic had a slow release and he ended up being effective with his shot. Not saying that Sun is Magic in any way shape or form, just having you guys relate his set shot. Sun's shot wasn't as as bad as many in here and in other places made it out to be, so these people either don't know anything about shooting mechanics or are only basing his shot based on the final result. Today, Sun shot a decent percentage against the USA in the biggest game of his life. That speaks volumes.

Sun showed very good athletic ability and coordination for his his size. He needs to bulk up, no doubt, but if he can play the 2 in the NBA, there aren't going to be many 2 ballers that can shoot over him and push him around in the post. He'll get worked in the low post at the 3, but will create havoc for most NBA 3s based on his ball handling and passing skills.

He's adept with both hands at dribbling and passing, but we never got to see if he can finish with his right or left for that matter. He's a better rounded dribbler than Lamar, again basing it on what he did against Dobermamba, and that tells me that if he improves on his weaknesses he can become a solid contributor for LA.

His mental toughness, again, speaks volumes. Instead of getting rattled by ATTEMPTING to block Kobe and others, he went up to swat away Howard and kept on playing solid basketball against a talented laced American team.

Very good debut by Sun, IMO.

[crazyeights]

Anyone have video of the Kobe dunk on Yue? Or the Lebron ally-oop from D-Wade? I can't find highlights anywhere. Damn NBC.

[dflash3]

Anyone have video of the Kobe dunk on Yue? Or the Lebron ally-oop from D-Wade? I can't find highlights anywhere. Damn NBC.

http://www.lakersmedia.com/?p=221

[wireonfire]

Block on Howard.

[crazyeights]

Anyone have video of the Kobe dunk on Yue? Or the Lebron ally-oop from D-Wade? I can't find highlights anywhere. Damn NBC.

http://www.lakersmedia.com/?p=221

Thanks man, I appreciate it.

[thetennisyao]

damn, how much money did NBC pay china.........!

[Mindflayer]

Don't put too much stock in one game but he looked okay. He may be able to contribute in the NBA. He didn't look 6'9" to me. I thought his shot looked better than advertised but I'm not completely sold on his passing ability yet.

[what would jack bauer do?]

I liked what I saw from him today. It's really tough to rate him when China runs the offense that they do, but on defense he was alright. He doesn't look nailed to the floor defensively like he did a year ago, but he doesn't look any bit stronger. We all got to keep in mind these are the absolute best players in the NBA he's going against. He isn't going to be guarding Kobe, Deron, and Chris Paul every night so he'll be useful against lesser talent sooner than I thought. I think he's going to be at a good starting point come October. I don't expect him to crack the rotation, but I see he has the fearlessness he needs to succeed in the NBA. This next season he'll most definitely be overmatched by the physicality and power of the nba, but I think we'll see contributions from him in a couple years. Our roster always does a good job of training during the offseason to get better (Sasha, Farmar, Bynum, Kobe), hopefully he picks up those habits and pushes himself like the rest of our team always does.

I hope his progression is good while he's sitting on the bench. Our player development staff does a good job mixing it up for our rookies with the d-league and the Lakers bench, I think that'll work out well for Yue because he'll probably school the d-leaguers like Farmar and Karl. Towards the end of the season I could see us throwing him at Steve Nash, Jason Kidd, CP3, or Deron for spot minutes. I'd sure as hell love to see if he could disrupt their vision with his length.

[DubaLakers]

What was up with D12 getting blocked all game? He got blocked like 5 times.

[milesfides]

He doesn't need to have the quickest release, he just needs to be accurate. I'd rather have this 6'9" kid take his time on spot-up jumpers than firing up running threes.

He also doesn't need to guard point guards, he'll just have to be quick enough to stay with swingmen.

He had a solid game against the best of the NBA, and I'm not so sure why people think he's not ready to contribute. Guy has some range, he can handle, pass, drive, and he likes to play defense. He looks pretty damn ready to me, and I dunno, I think I'd prefer him to Radamn or a hurt Luke.

[j-far]

Its not much about him blocking shots. Its rather his ability to run his lungs out everytime the opposotion gets a fastbreak, trying to get a block says so much about his determination, physical conditioning and agility. He's be a brave player if he can get an opportunity to play for us.