Yi Jianlian

Yi Jianlian, all 7-foot-something of him, carried the weight of Chinese basketball expectation for years. Nicknamed the Chairman, he made the NBA jump, suiting up for the Bucks, Nets, Wizards and Mavericks, before becoming a CBA mainstay with the Guangdong Southern Tigers. The NBA chapter never quite caught fire, and I always wondered how much of that was injury and how much was the impossible hype back home. What I admire is that he kept anchoring China's national-team ambitions regardless. Moving with that frame the way he did is its own gift. He shouldered a country's hopes and stayed standing.

Name (English)

Yi Jianlian

Name (Japanese)

易建聯

Reading

いー・じゃんりゃん

Born

October 27, 1987 (age 38)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Scorpio / Rabbit

Origin

Heshan, People's Republic of China

Height

211 cm

Occupation

basketball player

University

Guangdong University of Technology

• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yi%20Jianlian
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%98%93%E5%BB%BA%E8%81%AF
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q352064

Tags

• basketball player

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.