Yang Hee-jong (born 11 May 1984) is a South Korean professional basketball player. He plays for the Anyang KGC of the Korean Basketball League and the South Korean national team. Early life Yang is a native of Suwon and had been a star taekwondo athlete in elementary school but his PE teacher suggested that he try basketball as he was taller than his peers. As a student at Samil Commercial High School, Yang quickly drew the attention of college basketball recruiters as well as youth national team selectors after they won the school's first ever basketball tournament. College career Yang played college basketball for Yonsei University. His teammates at that time included best friend Kim Tae-sul and national teammate Ha Seung-jin, who had been his junior in high school. He and Kim were part of the Yonsei team which dominated and won the National Basketball Festival (Korean: 농구대잔치) competition, then the main collegiate competition, for two consecutive years. In the 2004 final against Chung-Ang University, he scored a double-double (points and rebounds). Professional career Yang was drafted third overall by Anyang KT&G Kites in the 2007 KBL rookie draft. The 2007 draft was later retrospectively dubbed the "Golden Draft" as it also included 2014 Asian Games gold medalist Kim Tae-sul and KBL regular season MVP Award winners Park Sang-oh and Ham Ji-hoon, with Ham and Yang being "one club men". The first two seasons were largely unspectacular as Yang played regularly, averaging 25 to 30 minutes, but was overshadowed by fellow 2007 draftees Ham Ji-hoon and Kim Tae-sul. He was given the moniker mu-rok (Hangul: 무록), a shortened colloquialism for "no record", referring to the fact that he was a behind-the-scenes player who did the "dirty work" defending the post but had no impressive statistics to show for it. During the 2008–09 season, he ranked tenth overall (among both domestic and foreign players) in blocks, the only forward to have ranked so high; the two domestic players ranked before him were center Ha Seung-jin and Kim Joo-sung, who was a forward-center swingman. Although Anyang failed to qualify for the playoffs that season, he and Joo Hee-jung stood out for their efforts, with Yang earning a spot in the Defensive Best 5 for the first time and Joo winning the MVP. In April 2009, Yang enlisted for mandatory military service and was assigned to the Korea Armed Forces Athletic Corps's Sangmu