Ridiculousness

Jeremy Lin is now a member of the Houston Rockets.

Again.

Officially.

And I couldn't be happier.

As a basketball fan.

As a fantasy basketball owner.

And as a guy who finds it completely impossible to root for the overrated shooting star titled Carmelo Anthony.

There’s never been a player who has accomplished less, by thinking he's more, than Lin's former teammate Carmelo Anthony.

Since joining the Association in 2003, Anthony has been the poster child for that old golf saying:

You drive for show, but you putt for dough.

Despite scoring nearly 16,000 points in the regular season, Carmelo has never been able to win the big one.

Actually he’s never been able to win the little one either.

Sure, he’s made the playoffs every year.

But considering that more than half of the league does that, that’s not really saying much.

And in every one of those years, except one, Carmelo was eliminated in the first round.

In fact, Anthony’s post-season win percentage is the lowest of any NBA player who has ever laced up the sneakers.

Well any player who has played 50 or more playoff games.

But still.

Even with that abysmal record, that hasn’t stopped NBA owners from throwing money at him.

LOTS of money at him.

In 2007, the Denver Nuggets signed Anthony to a five-year $80 million dollar deal.

Anthony rewarded the team by demanding a trade in 2010.

And then again in 2011.

In February of that year, the Nuggets finally gave in.

Shipping Anthony to New York for five guys, three draft picks and a chunk of cash.

Before the ink was dry on the deal, the Knicks rewarded Carmelo with a three-year contract extension.

Worth another $65 million.

Carmelo may not know much about winning in the NBA, but he certainly knows how to get paid.

And maybe that’s what has me so fired up about this story.

When the word came out a few days ago that Houston had offered Lin a three-year deal worth $25 million.

Everybody had an opinion.

Especially Carmelo.

When asked what he thought of the offer, Anthony called it “ridiculous.”

Ridiculous!

Really?

Generous, maybe.

Magnanimous, perhaps.

But ridiculous?

Paying a guy like Anthony who has a whopping 17 playoff wins over nine seasons nearly $22 million a year.

That’s ridiculous.

Paying the most marketable NBA player since Michael Jordan a third of that.

That’s plain brilliant.

The fact that the Knicks didn’t match the Lin offer, or perhaps couldn’t match the offer.

Because they had too much cash locked up in Anthony’s monster contract.

Well, that’s nobody’s fault but the Knicks.

If anything is ridiculous about this situation, it’s the fact that  the Knicks were sitting on a goldmine.

And they flushed it down the sewer.

New York City has the largest Chinese population of any city outside of Asia.

And Jeremy Lin is Chinese.

Holy Gene Rayburn Batman.

We have a match.

Unfortunately the Knicks took that perfect match and lit their franchise on fire.

Don’t blame Jeremy Lin for signing the best deal he could.

And don’t blame the Rockets for giving it to him.

Even if Houston had no idea what they had in Lin when they released him just eight months ago.

Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey tweeted as much back in February:

Daryl Morey ‏@dmorey

@jlin7 Did not know he was this good.  Anyone who says they knew misleading U 

I guess he ran out of characters.

But the point was well taken.

Jeremy Lin came out of nowhere.

Well, he came out of Harvard.

Which in the NBA, is out of nowhere.

And the fact that he’s an Asian point guard.

Well, that really stacked the odds against him.

But during the 25 starts he made with the Knicks this past season, Lin showed that he can really play in this league.

Like February 4th.

When he scored 25 points off the bench to beat the Nets.

Or February 6th.

When he had 28 points and eight assists to beat the Jazz.

Or February 8th.

When he had 23 and 10 in a win against Washington.

Or February 10.

When he dropped 38 on Kobe Bryant and the Lakers.

Or February 11.

When he put up 20 and eight against Minnesota.

Or February 14.

When he had 27 and 11 in Toronto, including a buzzer-beating three-point shot to win it.

Or February 15.

When he put up a career-high 13 assists to beat Sacramento.

Seven straight wins.

Six of which were without Anthony.

Who was nursing a “lingering groin injury.”

And when Anthony did come back.

The team lost eight out of 10.

Including six straight at one point.

Coincidence.

I think not.

Now only time will tell if Jeremy Lin can recapture the magic that swept through New York five months ago.

The Linsanity, if you will.

But the bottom line for me is that Jeremy Lin is everything that is right about sports.

While Carmelo Anthony is everything that is wrong.

And anybody who says anything different, is just plain ridiculous.

Disco Linferno

Linsanity.  Lincredible.  Lin Your Face.

The puns could go on all day.

And they have.

Norm Crosby could only wish to create so many new words.

Jeremy Lin of the New York Knicks is so hot right now,  David Letterman even did a list of the Top 10 Linsane Puns:

10.  LIN-termittent Windshield Wiper

  9. Law and Order: Criminal LIN-tent

  8. Ange-LIN-a JOL-emy

  7. LIN-ternational House of LIN-cakes

  6. Newt LIN-grich

  5. LIN-terest-bearing LIN-vestment Grade Financial LIN-strument

  4. Does this look LIN-fected to you?

  3. JERE-meat Sauce with LIN-guine

  2. KNI-xual LIN-tercourse

  1. You gotta be LIN it to LIN it

Dave is not the only one doing it either.

The crowd at Madison Square Garden these days looks more like a wrestling event than a basketball game.

But it was only a matter a time before somebody would make a wrong turn.

And in this case, the guilty party is the self-proclaimed worldwide leader in sports.

ESPN.

For the last few weeks, ESPN has treated Jeremy Lin like Michael Jordan.

Their coverage has been all Lin, all the time.

Pretty amazing treatment for a guy who has started seven games.

Seven AMAZING games, true.

But seven games nonetheless.

ESPN has been doing everything they can to cash in on this Linderella story.

Tickers and graphics and highlights and interviews.

Features, reporters and breakdowns.

Oh my.  

But after Friday’s game, they pushed it over the line.

Or is it over the Lin.

CHINK IN THE ARMOR

That was the headline on espn.com Friday after the Knicks lost their first game with Lin as their starting point guard.

As you might imagine, those four words got the four-letter network in hot water.

Actually it was just one of those words which got them in trouble.

And to their credit, espn.com removed the headline at 3:05am.

35 minutes after it was first posted.

The mega-network apologized for their Linsensitive mistake shortly thereafter.

But to make it worse, a tape also surfaced from an ESPNews segment on Wednesday.

In that segment, anchor Max Bretos used the same “Chink in the Armor” cliche to try and make a point.

Oh he made a point alright.

Now I don’t know Max Bretos, but it was very clear from watching the eight-second gaffe that Bretos was 100% guilty.

Guilty of making a stupid mistake.

And nothing more.

But in this age of political correctness, the last thing you can do is use the word CHINK in a story about someone of Chinese descent.

And God forbid you make fun of Jeremy Lin, the hottest sports story this side of Tim Tebow.

For the first time, maybe ever, the story of Jeremy Lin is a story that a billion Chinese people really do care about.

Which is nearly a billion more than would’ve noticed had Lin been doing this for the New Orleans Hornets.

Or Milwaukee Bucks.

Or if he was still with the Erie BayHawks of the NBA Development League.

Where he was playing a month and change ago.

It’s amazing what the bright lights of New York City can do for your career.

It was just two weeks ago that this baby was born.

Entering the Knicks game on February 4,  Lin had played a grand total of 55 NBA minutes in 23 NBA games this year.

And in those 23 games, he scored 32 points.

That’s 32 total points.

You don’t need a degree from the Ivy League to figure out that that’s less than a basket per game.

But Lin has one of those.

A degree from the Ivy League.

In fact, he only went there because nobody else wanted him.

Well nobody else wanted him on the basketball court.

During the recruiting process, it was Lin doing the recruiting.

He sent a resume and DVD of his high school basketball highlights to a bunch of schools.

All the Ivy League Schools.

Cal Berkeley, Stanford and UCLA.

This is no dummy.

But even with the grades, on and off the court, nobody bit.

And when no one else came calling, he settled for Harvard.

It must be nice, settling for Harvard.

But while he was there, he didn’t settle for anything.

In fact, he became a giant fish in that ivy pond.

Becoming the first player in Ivy League history to have 1450+ points, 450+ rebounds, 400+ assists and 200+ steals in a career.

Ok, we are talking Ivy League basketball.

But still.

Still with those numbers, the guy who didn’t get any scholarship offers.

Also didn’t get drafted by any NBA teams.

Not one.

But bouncing back from rejection is Lin’s middle name.

Actually Shu-How is his middle name.

His parents came to the U.S. from Taiwan in the 70s.

They eventually settled in California, where Lin was born in 1988.

According to Wikipedia, Lin is the first American player in NBA history to be of Chinese or Taiwanese descent.

And hence we reach the center of this story.

This is not a basketball story.

This is not a story about free throws or assists.

This is a story about life.

A story about perseverance.

And determination.

And desire.

And basketball.

This is a story about a man who is opening a door that has never been opened before.

Yao Ming, Shmao Ming.

As great as Yao was, and he was great, there is not one kid in this world who can relate to the 7-foot-4 star.

Jeremy Lin on the other hand.

That’s a different story.

We are all capable of not getting scholarships.

And we are all capable of not getting drafted.

And we are all capable of dreaming.

Of course, there’s no telling when this dream will end.

Or if it will end.

But for now, all we can do is just watch.

And enjoy.

And if you don’t believe.

Maybe you are just Lin Denial.