This may be true with NBA fans who are aware of professional basketball culture and fan attitudes, but as it filters down to the masses, I think the racist angle is lost, or at least deemphasized.
Take me as a data point: I haven’t followed professional basketball in decades. I can barely name you the teams. I certainly don’t know who the big-name players are (OK, Kobe Bryant rings a bell, but I couldn’t pick him out of a crowd), and I certainly have no clue as to the prevailing attitudes about Asians in the NBA.
When I heard about Jeremy Lin, the remarkability of the story cam 100% from the underdog-rises-to-the-challenge angle. Hell, I thought his name was Jeremy Lynn, and I had no idea, for part of the story, that he was Asian.
Er, not only is Harvard a D-I basketball school, they’ve been ranked in the Top 25 for a large part of this season–something almost entirely unheard of in their past. They’ve really improved over the last five years.
Well, the Lakers did have their shot at him, but politely declined. And as for people who already idolize him, that includes pretty much every New York-area Asian, part-Asian and wannabe-Asian. As my Korean friend proclaimed to his buddies on Friday night, after watching Lin light up the Lakers: “Let’s go out and find some white women to have sex with! This might be our only chance!” [/paraphrase]
Yeah- he’s bounced around the league a few teams have been interested in him, but he wasn’t drafted and certainly nobody saw this coming. The Mavs also tried to get him last year before the Warriors signed him, and if he’d signed with them he might’ve won a championship last year. He took a hometown discount to go with the Warriors instead. After they cut him, Houston gave him a look, then the Knicks. It’s not that nobody thought he was any good, it’s that he hadn’t landed in the right place and been given enough of an opportunity. It’s a great story about a guy rising to the moment.
Going by his last Lin’s last five games, absolutely not. Lin is famous right now because he’s scoring an absolute assload of points; his points in his first four games as a starter were the most by any player in their first four starts in 35 years, and in his five games as New York’s primary point guard he has 26.8 PPG, which is more what you’d get out of your big scoring forward and is a lot better than Anthony, who this year isn’t putting up good numbers. Indeed, Lin’s points-to-assists ratio is kind of skewed AWAY from what you’d expect of a great “team player” point guard.
I haven’t seen much of Lin, but I’m betting that opposing defenses have been giving him open looks and challenging him to make them. That’s precisely what you want from any point guard, because it forces the defense to keep a man on him and opens things up for everyone else. It’s the reason why Rondo isn’t an elite point guard, because he becomes a liability on offense in the last two minutes of a game.
One thing that I thought I’d point out, only because so many media commentators haven’t…
Jeremy Lin is AMERICAN! He was born and raised HERE in the U.S.A., just as I was!
I can certainly understand why Asian-American sports fans would look at him and say, “YESSSSS! It’s about time!” Asian-American sports stars are rare enough that Asian-American fans almost have to embrace the few that come along.
But so many commentators are talking about Lin as a sign of how international the game of basketball has become. And that irritates me, because Lin is NOT an example of how “international” the NBA has become. Yao Ming was an international player. Ricky Rubio is an international player. Dirk Nowitzki is an international player. But Jeremy Lin is as American as I am!
Mayweather is half right. Let’s be honest here, much of the story here is Lin being Asian-American. What Mayweather is wrong about is that Lin is only doing what black players routinely do. Lin is playing much better than the Knicks’ other (black) point guards, and has put up historic first-few-games stats.
Please tell me where you’re seeing this so I can not watch or listen to those people. :smack: There have been a few Asian players in the league, but he’s the first Asian-American. That’s one of the basic facts in the story.
Nobody said otherwise- in fact everybody’s been upfront about that fact, and there’s nothing wrong with pointing it out. If Lin was white or black he’s still be quite a story even if it’d be less of a big deal, and there aren’t a whole lot of guys who have outplayed him over the last few games. Mayweather is an ass and he seems to really have a problem with Asian people.
It’s a perfect storm of events: Underdog kid, Asian-American from Harvard, kicked around the league for a couple of years, one day away from being cut, comes on for the Knicks, who have been struggling and takes off…in New York, a town not known for its subtlety when it comes to sports, especially basketball. Throw in a outstanding game against the Los Angeles Lakers and you have your recipe. It isn’t any one of these things, it’s all of them. You take any one of them away and it probably isn’t half the story it is now.
The kid is an inspiration to young players, for sure. He saw an opportunity with the team stars on the bench and made the most of it. Even if he ends up back on the bench, other teams will be recruiting. Man, Portland really needs a point guard who can be a closer. Aldridge can’t do it all.
I agree about part of it. However, if a young black guy came out of nowhere like this, it would receive some big attention. Him not being drafted and never having been heard of is quite a big deal.
Well, if the Knicks hadn’t found him playing street ball during his breaks from his work as a junior associate at Goldman Sachs, who knows if anyone would ever realize his talents?
The timing definitely makes sense, as Goldman pays out bonuses in the late-Jan or early Feb time frame. Like many other Wall Streeters, he grabbed his bonus and left for greener pastures!
Something to keep in mind is that D’Antoni runs a very pg friendly system, Chris Duhon looked great under him too and now i dread it every time he comes on the court for the Magic.
