Yi Jianlian Has Strained Ligament In Right Knee, Out Two Weeks To A Month

Yi Jianlian went down with a right knee injury as his CBA team, Guangdong, was defeated by Stephon Marbury and the Beijing Ducks on Friday.  Sina Sports recently reported that the knee injury isn’t too serious, but unlike J.R. Smith, Yi will still be forced to rest for at least two weeks.  Here’s a link to Sina’s article in Chinese, and an excerpt from my poorly-translated version that’s just good enough to get the point across…

The results show for the medial collateral ligament injury, the initial diagnosis requires at least two weeks of rest. However, the club said Monday [Yi] will also visit Hong Kong for further examination and treatment.

Also, this from what appears to be Yi’s Weibo (Chinese Twitter, basically)…

…not serious! Within two to four weeks will be able to return to play! Thank you for concern!

It seems that Yi should be just about ready to go for Washington’s opener.  Unlike the American players who signed to play in the CBA this season, Yi has a special out clause that allows him to return to the Wizards.  That is, of course, if they re-sign him.  Yi is an unrestricted free agent at the moment.

Video of the injury for those who haven’t seen it:

The good news is something I kind of expected as Yi has had a history of these minor knee injuries.  I’m glad that both this incident as well as J.R. Smith’s knee scare were both false alarms.