The Sun Yue era of Lakers basketball will be delayed indefinitely.
A day after he was introduced to local media, the Lakers announced the 6-foot-9 guard from China had contracted mononucleosis and would be sidelined indefinitely.
In a press release, the team said the illness was diagnosed after Sun became ill Wednesday night and was taken to the emergency room of a local hospital.

EL SEGUNDO -- Mostly out of curiosity, I dropped by the Lakers' practice facility today for a press conference to introduce Sun Yue, the guard billed as "the Chinese Magic Johnson," mostly because he's 6-foot-9. (Or supposed to be, anyway; my first impression was that he's a couple inches shorter than that, but I'll have to wait until I get a better up-close look or see him by some of his teammates for a better feel of that.)
I didn't see any Olympic basketball in Beijing, so I haven't seen Sun in action. The August press release announcing his signing noted he averaged 6.8 points, 1.7 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.3 steals at the Olympics, which leaves out a rather key statistic, so I looked it up: 1.7 turnovers per game. Remembering how abysmal China's guards were at the 2004 Olympics -- they found it almost impossible to bring the ball up court against any kind of defensive pressure -- that's better than I expected, and could be the most significant state in the group.
I was not surprised to see a huge media turnout (relatively speaking) for the press conference, although only a small portion of it was the usual Laker media crew. About two-thirds of those in attendance represented what I'd term as Asian-Angelino media outlets, raising the prospect that the Lakers will have an even larger international press contingent this year, with those reporters joining those who started following the team when Pau Gasol arrived.
As for content of the press conference, Sun conducted it in English -- a reflection, no doubt, of the fact he played for an L.A.-based ABA team two years ago (the franchise subsequently moved to Singapore).
He did have a translator on hand for occasional help, but mostly handled himself pretty well, although it's probably wise to allow him some slack with the nuances. Asked about the strengths of his game, he twice called himself an "average" player, when it seemed more likely he meant something like "all-around," since the rest of his answer was about not focusing on any one area in particular.
Beyond that, it was pretty much the standard getting-to-know-you stuff. Sun said the Lakers had always been his favorite team, so he's been watching the triangle offense a lot, that he'll do whatever the coaches want him to, and that he thinks his time with the ABA team will make the transition to life as a Laker much easier, saying he already knows the city fairly well.
Sun was a second-round pick a year ago, and as such is certainly no lock to make the team. The Lakers will go into training camp next week with seven other guards (returnees Kobe Bryant, Jordan Farmar, Derek Fisher, Coby Karl and Sasha Vujacic, along with rookies Joe Crawford and Dwayne Mitchell) as well as swing man Ira Newble.
Back, and not yet back: The Lakers also announced Wednesday that they've re-signed backup center D.J. Mbenga -- Didier Ilunga-Mbenga, if you want to be formal. He played 26 games with the team last year -- originally on a pair of 10-game contracts before being retained for the rest of the season -- and averaged 2.0 points, 1.7 rebounds and 0.6 blocks in 7.8 minutes.
Mbenga will therefore be taking part when training camp opens, but Luke Walton won't. He has not yet been cleared to begin running as he continues to recover from July 18 ankle surgery.