Yi Jianlian

Yi is not the first Chinese basketball player to come under scrutiny for age discrepancy, as former NBA player Wang Zhizhi had been listed as being born in both 1977 and 1979.

Yi Jianlian (born October 27, 1984) is a Chinese former professional basketball player who last played for the Guangdong Southern Tigers of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA).

He also played in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the Milwaukee Bucks, the New Jersey Nets, the Washington Wizards, and the Dallas Mavericks.

In 2007 and 2008, Yi's date of birth was further scrutinized as being 27 October 1984, including a Chinese reporter discovering a high school enrollment form from 1997 that listed Yi as being born on 27 October 1984.

Yi joined the Guangdong Southern Tigers for the 2002–03 CBA season, and subsequently won the CBA Rookie of the Year award.

In his first five years with Guangdong, the team won three CBA titles.

Hoping to sign Yi to an endorsement deal, Adidas invited him to attend the company's ABCD Camp in New Jersey in 2002, where he competed against all-American high school players.

After returning to China in 2002, Yi signed a professional contract with Chinese Basketball Association side Guangdong Southern Tigers and averaged 3.5 points and 1.9 rebounds per game in his first season.

He also averaged 7.3 points and 7.3 rebounds per game in four games during the playoffs, and won the Rookie of the Year award.

Yi was featured in TIME's August 2003 article titled "The Next Yao Ming".

Yi also played for the Chinese national team, having represented his country at the Olympics in 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016, as well as the 2006 and 2010 FIBA World Championships.

Yi played in the 2004 Olympics.

As a child, Yi's parents did not allow him to join a sports school, which is designed for children predicted to be future professional athletes.

However, a sports school's basketball coach who noticed Yi's potential in playing street basketball persuaded Yi's family to allow him to train professionally.

In 2004, Yi was listed as being born in 1984 during the Four Nation Tournament, but Chinese officials said that it was probably a typographical error.

Two years later, Fran Blinebury of The Houston Chronicle reported that Yi told Shane Battier he was 24 years old in an exhibition game before the 2006 FIBA World Championship, but the story was refuted by both Yi and Battier.

In 2006, a senior Chinese official admitted that past youth squads had included players above the permitted age.

In each of his next three seasons, Yi led Guangdong to the CBA championship and he was awarded the CBA finals' most valuable player honor in 2006.

In early 2006, however, Yi announced that he would enter the 2006 NBA draft although he eventually decided to withdraw, saying he was "not good enough to compete in the NBA and needed more experience."

In the 2007 NBA draft, he was selected by the Milwaukee Bucks with the sixth overall pick.

Initially, Yi declined to sign with Milwaukee for several months before agreeing to a contract with them in August 2007.

In Yi's final season in the Chinese Basketball Association before he entered the 2007 NBA draft, he averaged a career-high 24.9 points and 11.5 rebounds per game, but his team lost to the Bayi Rockets in the playoff finals.

Later that year, the Guangdong Southern Tigers announced that Yi would enter the 2007 NBA draft.

Yi chose Dan Fegan as his agent to represent him in the NBA draft and flew to Los Angeles to participate in pre-NBA draft camps.

Before the draft, Yi was predicted by many to be picked anywhere from third to twelfth.

On 28 June 2007, Yi was selected by the Milwaukee Bucks with the sixth overall pick in the 2007 NBA draft, despite Fegan warning the Milwaukee Bucks not to pick Yi and not allowing them to be one of the teams invited to Yi's pre-draft private workouts in Los Angeles.

Fegan did not want Milwaukee to select Yi because the city of Milwaukee did not have a large Asian-American community.

However, Milwaukee's general manager Larry Harris said they had only drafted the best player available to them.

After the draft, Milwaukee attempted to convince Yi to sign with the team and on 2 July 2007, the owner of the Bucks franchise, Herb Kohl, wrote a letter to Yi and his representatives, hoping to persuade Yi to sign with the team.

Three days later, head coach Larry Krystkowiak and Harris met with Yi, attempting to influence him to play for Milwaukee, however, Yi's representatives requested that the team trade Yi to another team with a city that had a large Chinese presence.

On 29 August 2007, the Milwaukee Bucks and Yi agreed to a standard, multi-year rookie contract.

Yi was named to Milwaukee's starting lineup by head coach Larry Krystkowiak in place of Charlie Villanueva to begin the 2007–08 season.

He recorded nine points and three rebounds in a debut loss to the Orlando Magic.

He played his first home game in Milwaukee three days later and scored 16 points while grabbing eight rebounds in a 78–72 win over the Chicago Bulls.

The game was also Yi's first game to be televised nationally in China, where it was watched by an estimated 100 million viewers.

Chinese officials also required that any team Yi played for would have to give him sufficient playing time for him to improve for the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Kohl made a special trip to Hong Kong to appeal to Yi personally and he assured Chinese officials that Yi would have sufficient playing time.

Yi was not expected to enter the NBA draft until 2009 because the Chinese Basketball Association ruled that players are not allowed to leave for foreign leagues until they turned 22.

He later played for three other NBA teams until returning to the Guangdong Southern Tigers in 2012.

Yi and Sun Yue together marked the first time in NBA draft history where two Chinese born players were selected in the same draft, which was a feat that would not be repeated again until 2016.