Live Bar, June 4 -before that, Yi Jianlian attended the opening ceremony of Yi Jianlian building in Nike Group’s Greater China headquarters Park. Later, Yi Jianlian accepted Yang Yi’s interview.
Yang Yi: later, people called you “League of Arab”, which was a name in the South or Guangdong. In fact, when they first entered the national team, they called you “Xiaoyi” at that time “. However, we all called the “big” center who was elected to the national team before. Wang Zhizhi was so young that he entered the national team and was called “roughly”. Yao Ming was also very young to enter the national team and was called “Big Yao”, the bus (Battel) and Datang (Tang Zhengdong) are only “Xiaoyi”. Do you remember this time?
Yi Jianlian: I quite like to call me “Xiao Yi” and “a lian”, because it was really small at that time, and compared with them, they were also thin, and they were not as big as Datang and bus, including Chairman Yao is also such a big piece. I remember when I entered the national team and went to the defense bus, he was embarrassed to hit me, even if he took the ball, he was embarrassed to attack. Because it was training, he wouldn’t carry me hard, but he still took care of me, take good care of me. At that time, those old players took care of me very much, like Xiao Yu (Yu Junzhen) and rice crust (Guo Shiqiang), who always teased me. At that time, they slept in a room with Zhang Jinsong, all of whom were old players.
Yang Yi: What was the most difficult thing at that time?
Yi Jianlian: I can’t keep up with their idea of playing basketball. I feel that I can’t handle the passing of running, assisting in defense and attacking at certain times. When the ball comes to my hand, I will be nervous, I always feel that I am stuck in my position. In fact, I played slowly. After the experience is good, young players will get stuck when they come up. My position is actually the same. At that time, like Li Nan, Zhu Ba (Zhu Fangyu), Du Feng and Dayao, they often told me what should be like in some fields and shared some experiences, but they still had to accumulate through competitions.
Yang Yi: almost 20 years have passed. It is good to call you “Xiaoyi” or “League of Arab”. Now most people call you “League brother”. When the World Cup men’s basketball 2019 was held, I am the first one called you “Big Brother” in the commentary, others began to call you “Big Brother”.
Yi Jianlian (said with a smile): So you should pay attention to your influence (too much).
Yang Yi: Do you like being called “big brother?
Yi Jianlian: I still like others to call me “allian”. “Big Brother” is a bit strange.
Yang Yi: Are you afraid of being old?
Yi Jianlian: I’m not afraid either. Now all my teammates are very young. Even some of them are I started to learn basketball, and they are not born yet.