Could Dingsanity be joining Linsanity?
Nets guard Jeremy Lin authored the original Linsanity years ago in the Garden. Now he’s been working out with and hosting Ding Yanyuhang, a shooting guard dubbed Dingsanity expected to join the Nets for Las Vegas Summer League.
Ding earned the nickname at least year’s summer league when he impressed with Dallas. Now after being named Domestic MVP in the China Basketball Association for a second straight year, Ding will join the Nets summer league squad, Tencent Sports reported Sunday.
The 24-year-old Ding has been working out at HSS Training Center and hanging out with Lin, posting pictures of them on his Weibo. Then Lin posted a video of himself, Ding and Allen Guo, asking for takers for a game of three-on-three.
Ding averaged 26.0 points, 5.2 rebounds and 3.2 assists for Shandong this season. But, then again, everybody scores in China. A lot. A bad Knicks team had no use for Jimmer Fredette two seasons ago, but he poured in 36.9 ppg this past season in China and still didn’t even lead that league. So exactly why should Brooklyn be interested in giving Ding a summer league shot?
For one, size. 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.
As a matter of fact, by the time Ding and Dallas finished playing in both Orlando and Las Vegas, announcers called him “Mr. Summer League” and he got serenaded by chants of “MVP! MVP!” He wasn’t the best player in Vegas, but he was one of the most popular. Ding became a thing.
Granted, Ding is still very much a project. He hasn’t shown an ability to defend or rebound. But, hey, Brooklyn is all about development.Ding had planned to go back to summer league with Dallas, who nearly offered him a two-way contract last season. But after he came to the U.S. last month for medical treatment and started training in Brooklyn, the Nets invited him for a workout. Then another. And another. Now he’s heading to Las Vegas with them instead, with Lin likely to make a cameo appearance to visit his young teammates.
Ding joins a Nets summer league team the U.N. would be proud of.
Texas A&M big man Tyler Davis plays for Puerto Rico, Shawn Dawson is Israeli, and George Washington guard Yuta Watanabe is from Japan. Nets stash pick Juan Pablo Vaulet — whose participation is up in the air since he’s nursing yet another injury — is Argentine. And Bosnian first-round pick Dzanan Musa said he and Latvian second-rounder Rodions Kurucs will play, although general manager Sean Marks was noncommittal about that after their long European seasons.
Summer league play begins July 6.
