By now Jeremy Lin is a household name. In a sport where Asian Americans terrorize high school courts up and down the seaboards, college athletics has not found much use for Asians in the NBA. There was Yao, and a handful of other VLA’s (Very Large Asians) who broke through the stereotype barrier and became NBA ballers, but for the most part Asians have been shut out.
Then Linsanity happened.
Even his own teammates aren’t sure how or why it happened, but for a 25+ span of basketball games, Jeremy Lin was a beast. The fact he is Asian-American is extremely relevant to this for one simple reason: Lin is a crowd player. He is the type of athlete that steps up in front of a big crowd of cheering fans. He feeds off it the way a baby suckles at his mother’s breast. It nourishes him and makes him a better player. This, and the fact that his offense scheme at the time gave him an opportunity to make plays, created that incredible stretch of games where everyone wanted to tune in and see this kid break some ankles.
The other day the NY Knicks said goodbye to Lin. They refused to match the very silly offer sheet put forward by Lin’s former franchise, the Houston Rockets. Lin did not want to go. He knows what the NY crowd is and loves it. However, it is very difficult to turn down a deal that offers you nearly 15 million dollars in the third year. That third year is what made NYC say goodbye. Based on the state of the Luxury tax, The Knicks would have been paying nearly 30 million dollars that year for Lin alone. I am sorry but as exciting as a player Lin was to enjoy, 30 million is too steep a price to pay.
In shedding themselves of Lin the Knicks have submitted to another truth, which is that the team really does belong to Carmelo “Black Hole” Anthony. To paraphrase what I heard one reporter say, what good is Lin if he gets to half court and Anthony sticks out his left hand and demands the ball. Everybody knows once Anthony gets the ball he isn’t giving it back. I believe (and Anthony’s benching tonight at the Olympic games further proves) that Carmelo Anthony is a gifted, perhaps even unstoppable, scorer who is completely incapable of finding any rhythm without the ball in his hands. Having him and Lin on the court at the same time is a joke; a 30 million dollar joke at that, and the Knicks saved themselves a ton of drama by letting that one go.
Lin may find success in Houston. Based on what I’ve seen, he is a flash in the pan player who can be extremely good in the right offense. I don’t know if Houston will build around what he can offer, but looking at the pieces that are in place, I suspect he will do just fine. This would not have been the case in NYC where he would have been a PG without the B-A-L-L. It is a sad result of trying to successfully exist in the wake of a black hole.