YI JIANLIAN, who is fresh off an appearance with the Chinese national team at the Rio Olympics, has signed a contract with the Los Angeles Lakers, the NBA team announced Monday.

    Yi, of Guangdong Province, averaged 20.4 points and 6.6 rebounds in five games at the Summer Olympics, which wrapped up Sunday.

    “We’re excited to have a player of his worldwide accomplishments,” general manager Mitch Kupchak said Monday. “We look forward to bringing him to training camp and hopefully having him make an impact on our team.”

    Yi, 28, joins a team that has been at or near the bottom of the NBA the past several seasons. To compound their woes, the Lakers lost their top player when future Hall of Famer Kobe Bryant retired at the end of this past season.

    The Lakers declined to release details of the contract.

    Yi is a former first round draft pick of the Milwaukee Bucks in 2007. He has not played in the NBA since 2012 and has spent the past four seasons playing in the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA).

    His international career includes winning three gold medals at the FIBA Asia Championships (2015, 2011, and 2005) and a gold at the 2006 Asian Games.

    Yi averaged just 7.9 points and 4.9 rebounds per game while shooting 40.4 percent from the field during his initial five-year stint in the NBA, but it wasn’t stunning, considering he had to deal with dramatic changes nearly every year.

    After the Bucks tabbed him as a potential franchise cornerstone in 2007, they dealt him to the New Jersey Nets the following summer before the Nets shipped him to the Washington Wizards in June 2010.

    A 30-game run with the Dallas Mavericks in 2012 proved to be the end of Yi’s hectic first act, at which point he went back home and shined for the Guangdong Southern Tigers of the CBA.

    Yi earned CBA Domestic MVP honors four times, averaging 26.4 points and 9.2 rebounds per game while shooting 54.9 percent from the field and a career-best 37.4 percent from beyond the arc in his most recent campaign.

    While those averages are unlikely to be sustainable in the NBA, Yi can focus on becoming a prototypical stretch 4 or 5 if he’s able to maintain his solid shooting percentage from distance.

    Yi attempted a career-high 2.1 three-pointers per game last season after mustering 0.7 per contest the year prior. In other words, he’s starting to feel increasingly comfortable taking triples in a modern niche.

    With the Lakers, Yi could fill that role for a frontcourt that is in desperate need of floor-stretchers. While the team padded its depth with center Timofey Mozgov, the bruising big man hardly puts pressure on defenses.

    Rather, he plays the role of a conventional center who is most effective as a rim runner below the free-throw line and second-chance opportunist on the glass.

    Considering Julius Randle is still working to extend his range, Yi could serve as a low-risk flier who now has the pick-and-pop three-point chops to turn into a dependable nightly contributor.(SD-Agencies)