Should be fun to watch Yi and Kevin Durant battle it out for ROY as we head into 2008. Despite the fact that the Bucks went down the dumper in December, Eazy-Yi had his best game of the season Dec. 22 vs. the Hornets (a team the NBA ought exterminate), hitting 14-of-17 from the floor, good for 29 points. Yi also added 10 rebs, 3 dimes, 3 steals and a block.

Durant for his part kept his scoring close to 20 a night (19.7). He’s still shooting around 40%, but actually rebounds a little better than people give him credit for (4.2). As the season heads into the second half look for Durant to wear down and throw up even more shots than he already does. If he shoots 40% for the year I say he wins ROY.

I’m noticing that while Durant gets a lot of coverage for being Durant, Yi’s coverage is pretty much limited to his being A) Chinese B) What he does/did as compared to Yao. Yi gets very little coverage in the basketball blog world. I don’t think he’s sexy in their eyes. Whether this would have any bearing on ROY I don’t know. I tend to think at the end of the day the voters look at “points,” check their box and move on. That’ probably not entirely the case.

Here’s a basketball Year in Review piece from the China Daily.