Bang is Back!!!!!!!!

By Dan Barto, Director of Post Graduate Program, IMG Basketball Academy

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2894643

The return of Bang Sung Yoon is here.  Bang as he is more widely known made his first appearance at IMG Academies back in 2004.  Fresh out of Yon-sei University, south of the river in Seoul, Korea, Bang came to the US to get ready for a run at the NBA.  Not officially able to enter the draft, he opted for a free agent contract in the upstart D-league. 

Bang's first few days in lovely Bradenton were hilarious.  Speaking absolutely not one word of English, Bang was assigned to me since he was represented by IMG Korea.  This meant riding him everywhere, helping him with his English homework, partaking in Bul-go-gi three times a week, and rebounding the extra 500 NBA 3 pointers he wanted to shoot after practice.

The very first night Bang broke the leg off of the bed and slept on the futon in the living room.  By the second day we had covered a majority of the swear words of importance and how to say every player's name who was training at the time.  Of course struggling with his L's and R's, my favorites were Tyronn Lue and Al Harrington. 

Bang slowly adjusted to the pace of the training and the NBA players’ harassment.  The guys learned that he was an extremely valuable asset in pickup games because he did not miss.  Korean players take great pride in their shooting mechanics.  They tend to be overly concerned with posture and the concentration of keeping level shoulders (another great translation).  The release time is a little slow and not athletically fluid to watch but the physics of it could not be better.  Bang is also very difficult to guard with some Rip Hamilton-esque type movements.  Since he is not a tremendous lateral athlete he depends on the pacing of his shot fake series and his crafty finishes to get shots off.  Considering he has been double and triple-teamed for most of the last three years, I would imagine he has improved in all those areas. 

Bang rivals Adam Harrington as the best spot shooter I ever trained.  The interesting thing as seen in the article is the legend of Bang.  By coming to the NBDL in 2004, Bang Americanized Asian basketball in the sense that he left not only college early but his country all together.  After leading his under-18 and under-20 teams to big wins over Yao Ming and China, Bang created a cult following.  Had he been able to enter the NBA draft, my feeling is he would have been an early second rounder.  The D-league did not stop the decision and leveraging of his superstar status.  After his stint with Roanoke, he headed back to take the payday. 

Had the D-league been set up the way that it is now and his understanding of English better, he would have definitely been called up.  The second time around should be interesting.  My prediction is that if he can stay healthy and stay patient that a team will call him up and sign him by December.  He is a shot maker and a personality that the media here will fall for if he is given the chance.