Linsanity

those weren't Raptors fans.

Seriously, the Raptors aren't ever expected to win. The sell-out crowd was what is called the 905ers - and they were there for Jeremy Lin. If there were a few more Chinese-American or even Chinese-Canadian players, there would be SRO at the ACC every game.

Wasn't it Asian Appreciation Night at the stadium?

This morning, I heard some sportscaster type say that Lin was 5 days away from being traded by the Knicks when they took him off the bench 11 days ago. I have no idea whether or not that's true. They also said that he now stands to get at least a $10 million contract.

He certainly rose to the occasion when given the chance. And he sounds so modest about his ability and all the current publicity--he seems to truly be a team player.

I'm not a basketball fan, but even I'm anxious to see him in action, beyond the video clips, and I may watch a Knicks game if I can catch one on cable..

Al Sharpton interviewed Spike Lee about Lin today. They agreed his appearance out of the blue was divine intervention on behalf of the Knicks. (They also made some good points about not rejecting people because they don't seem to fit your stereotypes for a good job candidate. But who cares?)

Ok...the video was poor quality....but, what is the deal?

that was perfect execution of the cross-over dribble.
strange how the rest of the D just stood there and watched him drive to the bucket...

It was poor quality, sorry.

The deal is that it's hard to dunk a basketball. It's especially hard to dunk in games. It's extra-especially hard to dunk if you're only 6' 3", like Lin.

But beyond that, it was an amazing play by any standards (as Region says, that crossover dribble was a thing of beauty) but if it were Kobe Bryant, say, it would just be "there's Kobe being Kobe." Kobe was a high school phenom, top prospect, went straight from high school to the NBA. Kobe has always been Kobe, and has always been in the limelight.

Jeremy Lin, however, is some guy who's labored in the background for ages -- nobody who follows basketball, even pretty closely, had any idea who he was until 12 days ago. He went to Harvard and has been an anonymous back-up player -- he might come in for a short time in NBA games, towards the end, but had never started in an NBA game.

Then all of a sudden, when the Knicks lost at least two of their best players, the anonymous back-up player had to play more -- and didn't play like an anonymous back-up player!! Looked a lot more like a fancy starter. Which took everyone completely by surprise, and has been a lot of fun so far.

And also has meant a six-game winning streak for the formerly rather hapless Knicks. As in, it's not just a few tricky shots, he's really helping them win.

It's almost so fairy tale no one would make a movie about it because it would be unbelievable. Havard graduate, a little on the short side for the NBA, very modest and nice, maybe close to being cut gets a chance to play due to freakish coincidence of two players being injured at the same time. Comes against one of the top players in the league and has what for many players would be a career highlight game - and then he does it again and again including a six point run to pull a victory from the jaws of defeat in his latest outing.

I saw a sports talk program on ESPN and they asked an analyst if Lin was the new Tebow. The guy was outraged. He said Tebow was lucky to be playing in the NFL and his come from behind victories disguised poor performances in the first three quarters and generally lackluster overall numbers while Lin was the real thing from the first minute of the game to the last.

Actually, I have a question to you basketball buffs. If Lin used to be such a marginal player that his own team didn't take him seriously, chances are that opposing teams didn't either. Maybe their defenses gave him an easy time to concentrate on what they thought were greater threats. If so, they'll adapt pretty soon and fight him more fiercely. How much of his magic do you think will survive that?

I think that argument works for a quarter, but not for a game or multiple games. It's pretty easy to adjust your defense on the fly. I think you might be right in that there is not a lot of game tape to review showing Lin, but that works against him as well. His teammates are not familiar with him in game situations either.

He's also helping his teammates to play better.

he just needed to be in the right setting to shine? something like that

kinda like peanut butter and jam works, but peanut butter and cream cheese likely doesn't - the peanut butter was always good, but it needed the jam for its true awesomeness to be discovered

In addition to engineer's excellent point (there is far more flexibility in basketball than in football for example)*, the other thing is that he just hasn't really had any particular playing time in the NBA up until now.

That is, he'd do well enough to catch someone's eye (he IS on an NBA team after all, which is extremely hard to do, so you can only be so marginal if you can make a living in the NBA), but then they just didn't think he'd do well in actual games.

That comes down to being a good role player, too -- if he did get playing time, but was explicitly told to pass to X or run out the clock or whatever, that's what he would do.

With players hurt/ out (Stoudemire was physically healthy, but took time off after the unexpected death of his older brother), he had more latitude, and made the most of it.


* Just to expand on this, in the Toronto game-winner it looked like the guy guarding him was laying off of him/ not playing aggressive defense, but a) he'd shown that he can do the crossover dribble and drive for a dunk if you play him too close outside, and b) he was 3/18 from the three-point line at that point. With those kinds of odds, made sense for the defender to hang back a bit rather than be up in his face.

I keep editing that post, will just add another now instead of editing yet again:

What I actually worry about more than how future defenses will play him is how his body will stand up to this. He's not used to playing these kinds of minutes, and he's been taking a beating.

Thanks, engineer and sozobe. That' answers my question excellently.

Peanut butter is so awesome I can't stop once I start. I had to go cold turkey on it entirely. Not sure this state of affairs has meaning as a basketball metaphor, but there you go.

adrenaline should help to propel him through the remaining 36 games + playoffs...

I told you it was a copy writer's dream:

The Knicks, and Lin's, winning streak just came to an end.

Lin scored 26 points and 5 assists, but the Knicks lost to the Hornets 89-85.

Awww....

I looked for that one on TV, didn't seem to be on, though. Too bad.

Still, 26 points and 5 assists, not too shabby.