Lee Jung-hyun (born March 3, 1987) is a South Korean professional
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...
player for
Jeonju KCC Egis
The Jeonju KCC Egis is a professional basketball club in the Korean Basketball League.
Current roster
Enlisted players
Honours
Domestic
Korean Basketball League
*KBL Championship
:: Winners (5): 1997–98, 1998– ...
in the
Korean Basketball League and the
South Korean national team.
Early life
Lee played baseball and football throughout elementary school. A promising football prospect, he had considered becoming a professional football player.
He started playing basketball in sixth grade when his elementary school decided to start a basketball team and a classmate recruited him to join the team since he already had an athletic background. As a student at
Gwangju High School he gained the attention of college recruiters for his shooting skills.
Career
College
Lee played college basketball for
Yonsei University
Yonsei University (; ) is a private research university in Seoul, South Korea. As a member of the " SKY" universities, Yonsei University is deemed one of the three most prestigious institutions in the country. It is particularly respected in th ...
. He was largely unnoticed during his freshman year due to the presence of
Kim Tae-sul
Kim Tae-sul (born August 13, 1984) is a South Korean retired basketball player. During his fourteen-year professional career, Kim played for five different teams, the longest stint being at Anyang KGC where he won the KBL Championship. He was als ...
and
Yang Hee-jong, both in their senior season. During his senior year he was Yonsei's leader in points, assists and rebounds and led the team to the final of the National Basketball Festival (the main collegiate competition at that time) for the first time in five years.
Professional
Anyang KT&G / Anyang KGC (2010–2017)
In the 2010
KBL rookie draft, Lee was drafted by
Busan KT Sonicboom
Suwon KT Sonicboom () is a professional basketball club based in Suwon, South Korea which plays in the Korean Basketball League. Their home games are played at the Suwon KT Sonicboom Arena. Founded in 1997, the team was initially based in Gwan ...
second overall and then traded to
Anyang KT&G in a player exchange. Although he scored 19 points and impressed in his debut, he spent his first two seasons as the
sixth man
The sixth man in basketball is a player who is not a starter but comes off the bench much more often than other reserves, often being the first player to be substituted in. The sixth man often plays minutes equal to or exceeding some of the sta ...
and went on to the win the Sixth Man Award at the 2011-12 KBL awards ceremony.
He enlisted for
mandatory military service in April 2013 and joined the
Sangmu team after completing basic training. He was discharged in January 2015, returning to the team roster immediately.
During the 2015-16 season Lee was a mainstay of the Anyang team which reached the semi-finals of the play-offs, especially in clutch situations. He was the only Anyang player voted into the
KBL Best 5
The KBL Best 5 (Korean: 베스트 5) an annual honor bestowed on the best players in the Korean Basketball League following every season. The honor is analogous to the "All-NBA Team" in the NBA or "Team of the Year" in association football. Voting ...
that season.
Lee was part of the Anyang team which won a rare "double" during the 2016-17 season, winning both the regular season as well as the KBL Championship. The top-scoring domestic player that season, he was nominated for the
KBL Most Valuable Player Award The Korean Basketball League Most Valuable Player Award (MVP) (Korean language, Korean: 국내선수 MVP) is an annual Korean Basketball League (KBL) award given since 1997 to the best performing player of the regular season. It is only awarded to d ...
(MVP) award but lost to teammate
Oh Se-keun
Oh Se-keun (born 20 May 1987) is a South Korean professional basketball player who plays for Anyang KGC in the Korean Basketball League. Once a mainstay of the South Korean national team, he was a member of the gold medal-winning team at the ...
.
Despite his stellar record, Lee instead became better known for an incident during the playoffs, when Anyang KGC met
Seoul Samsung Thunders
Seoul Samsung Thunders ( ko, 서울 삼성 썬더스) is a professional basketball team, competing in the Korean Basketball League. Ever since the club was founded in 1978, they have been associated with Samsung Electronics. Initially based in ...
in the finals. During Game 2, he elbowed Thunders shooting guard Lee Gwan-hee, his former Yonsei teammate, in the neck while defending him and latter forcefully pushed him down on the ground as retaliation. Both were disciplined and fined for unsporting behavior, with Lee Jung-hyun whistled for a foul and Lee Gwan-hee being ejected for an
unsportsmanlike foul and suspended for the next game. As a result, he was booed by irate Thunders fans throughout Game 3 and failed to replicate his form, only scoring 9 points.
Jeonju KCC Egis (2017–2022)
After his contract with Anyang KGC ended, Lee became a free agent and joined
Jeonju KCC Egis
The Jeonju KCC Egis is a professional basketball club in the Korean Basketball League.
Current roster
Enlisted players
Honours
Domestic
Korean Basketball League
*KBL Championship
:: Winners (5): 1997–98, 1998– ...
for the 2017-18 season. In December 2017, he reached a milestone of appearing in his 300th consecutive KBL-sanctioned "A" match (professional match). He was voted KBL Most Valuable Player of the 2018-19 season as he led the league in points scored, averaging 17.2 points, among domestic players. His win made him the first Jeonju KCC Egis player in 20 years to win MVP and only the second MVP winner not from a Championship-winning team or league top-three team since the KBL was established.
In December 2019, he was nominated for and won the Male Basketball Player of the Year, voted for by league coaches and his KBL peers, at the annual ''
Dong-a'' Sports Awards honoring domestic professional athletes across all disciplines.
Lee was a key player in KCC winning the 2020-21 regular season and reaching the finals of the play-offs, losing the KBL Championship title to his former team Anyang KGC. However, he also became a controversial figure when the KBL released a list of players who were caught "
flopping" (faking
fouls) that season and his name was at the top of the list.
Lee's appearance record has extended into the 2021-22 season.
in December, he reached the record of playing in 500 consecutive KBL-sanctioned "A" games.
National team
Lee participated in the
2017 FIBA Asia Cup
The 2017 FIBA Asia Cup (formerly known as the FIBA Asia Championship) was the 29th continental basketball championship in Asia. The tournament was organised by FIBA Asia. It took place from 8 to 20 August 2017, a week earlier from the initial sche ...
. However, his form during the group stage was inconsistent. In South Korea's opening Group C game against hosts Lebanon, Lee failed to score all five attempted three-pointers and his and shooting guard
Heo Ung's lackluster performance around the perimeter were specifically pointed out as a major cause for South Korea's shock loss to the host nation. He bounced back to score 19 points in the next game, a win against Kazakhstan. For the next few games, his assist tally increased as he was switched into a combo guard role rather than a forward-shooting guard swingman.
Lee was in the final 12-man squad and named captain for the
2019 FIBA World Cup
The 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup was the 18th tournament of the FIBA Basketball World Cup for men's national basketball teams. The tournament was hosted in China and was rescheduled from 2018 to 2019, becoming the first since 1967 FIBA World Ch ...
.
In their opening Group B game against fifth-ranked Argentina, he scored 15 points, the only South Korean player other than
Ra Gun-ah to score in the double digits. He was injured in the game against China and was forced to sit out of their last game of the tournament, against the Ivory Coast.
Controversy
Lee's otherwise stellar 2016–17 season was marred by his infamous confrontation with Lee Gwan-hee during the playoffs. It has been speculated that both players, who are not usually known for such physical confrontations on the court, had already been on bad terms since their university days but both players and other fellow Yonsei alumni have declined to further elaborate on the matter.
Ever since the incident, any games in which the two players meet has received more attention from the media and fans.
Their alleged "feud" has been indirectly referenced numerous times during "draft day" for the annual All-Star Game, with fellow players and coaches noting that they should not be placed in the same team.
After departing Anyang KGC, Lee gained the moniker ''eu-ak-sae'' (
Hangul
The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul, . Hangul may also be written as following South Korea's standard Romanization. ( ) in South Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is the modern official writing system for the Korean language. The le ...
: 으악새), which is the Korean equivalent of the
onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', '' ...
"Whoops!", from the media and fans due to his "
flopping" (faking fouls). In the 2020–21 season alone, he tallied eleven fake fouls, the most of any domestic player and nearly twice as many as the second-placed
Lee Dae-sung.
Personal life
Lee is a fan of his hometown baseball team
Kia Tigers
Kia Tigers ( ko, KIA 타이거즈) are a South Korean professional baseball team founded in 1982 and based in the southwestern city of Gwangju. Until 2001, they were known as the Haitai Tigers. The Tigers are a members of the KBO League and are ...
and has been spotted attending their games during his off-season.
Since 2019, Lee has been occasionally referred to as "big Lee Jung-hyun" (큰 정현) by other players and in the media due to another younger player having the exact same name being called up to the senior national team for the same game.
"Small Lee Jung-hyun" (작은 정현) is also an alumnus of
Yonsei University
Yonsei University (; ) is a private research university in Seoul, South Korea. As a member of the " SKY" universities, Yonsei University is deemed one of the three most prestigious institutions in the country. It is particularly respected in th ...
and was drafted by
Goyang Orion Orions
Goyang Carrot Jumpers (Korean: 고양 캐롯 점퍼스) is a professional basketball club based in Goyang, South Korea which plays in the Korean Basketball League. Before the change of ownership in 2022, they were called Orions.
History
Dayo ...
in the 2021 rookie draft.
Although their names are spelled the same in
Hangul
The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul, . Hangul may also be written as following South Korea's standard Romanization. ( ) in South Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is the modern official writing system for the Korean language. The le ...
, their given names are written differently in
Hanja
Hanja (Hangul: ; Hanja: , ), alternatively known as Hancha, are Chinese characters () used in the writing of Korean. Hanja was used as early as the Gojoseon period, the first ever Korean kingdom.
(, ) refers to Sino-Korean vocabulary, ...
.
References
External links
Career Statisticsfrom the
Korean Basketball League website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Jung-hyun
1987 births
Living people
2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup players
Anyang KGC players
Asian Games bronze medalists for South Korea
Asian Games medalists in basketball
Basketball players at the 2018 Asian Games
Guards (basketball)
Jeonju KCC Egis players
Medalists at the 2018 Asian Games
South Korean men's basketball players
Sportspeople from Gwangju
Yonsei University alumni