Chinese star Ding Yanyuhang to join Nets in Vegas

Ding Yanyuhang, one of China’s top domestic players and a friend of Jeremy Lin, is joining the Nets summer league team, according to reports in Chinese media as well as posts on Ding’s social media pages and a statement from his agent, NL Sports. Ding, a 6’7” shooting guard, has been in New York for a week, working out at HSS Training Center and visiting with Lin.

Among the pictures Ding posted on his Weibo shots are several showing him, Lin and fellow CBA star Allen Guo.

Lin later posted a video showing him, Ding and Guo at HSS, asking whether anyone wanted to go 3-on-3 with them.

Ding, 24, has been the Domestic MVP in the China Basketball Association the past two seasons, averaging 26.0 points, 5.2 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game this year for Shandong. Last summer, he played with the Mavericks summer league team and impressed with his all-around game, winning the nickname “Dingsanity,” and becoming an internet sensation in Dallas. Here’s a compilation of Ding assists from the Orlando and Las Vegas summer league play.

The Mavs, in fact, were expected to sign Ding to their summer league team in anticipation of their visit to China in October.

The Nets invitation was an outgrowth of a Ding visit to Brooklyn for medical attention. Lin invited him to work out at HSS Training Center, reported Brian Lewis. The Nets liked what they saw and invited him for a workout. Then another. And another. Finally, they invited him to join their summer league team and he accepted.

As Lewis writes...

At 6-foot-7, he has an NBA frame. He also has an attractive, crowd-pleasing style and more than a little flash. He can put the ball on the deck and go by people and attacks coming off screens. And for style, he even threaded a no-look pass between a defender’s legs during summer league last year.

Ding will be the second Asian player on Brooklyn’s summer league roster. Previously, Yuta Watanabe, a 6’8” guard from Japan and George Washington University, reported he’ll be in Las Vegas as well. Summer league play begins July 6.

If the Nets two draft picks, Bosnia’s Dzanan Musa and Latvia’s Rodions Kurucs, wind up playing in Las Vegas and Argentina’s Juan Pablo Vaulet is healthy enough to play, the Nets summer league roster will include seven players with national team experience. In addition to Ding, Watanabe and the others, Tyler Davis of Puerto Rico and Shawn Dawson of Israel have also represented their homelands.

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