How Linvincible is he?

Yeah, I succumbed to the asinine word play with his name. So a week ago, the sports world was sitting around after the Super Bowl wondering what it was going to do for the next 6 weeks until Opening Day. NBA was offering up its worst product since Jordan retired for the second time. (No one really remembers this but he was just as bad as Brett Favre in terms of retirement by retiring three times in his career), baseball was weeks away, college basketball isn't entertaining until conference tournament time, and golf is still months away from the Masters.

Then along came Jeremy Lin. If anyone had been following the Knicks, you knew they were 8-15, had zero point guard play (crucial in a D'Antoni offense) and Carmelo was acting like the league's biggest black hole. Carmelo went down, Amare's brother died and the stage was set for end of the bench Jeremy Lin to get his opportunity. Honestly, when i saw those stats from his first start: 25 points, 7 assists, 5 rebounds I did a triple take. I watched Lin play some garbage time on New Year's Eve against Sacramento in a game where the Knicks led by 20+ points almost from the start. Lin got in the last 4 minutes of the game and was matched up against Isaiah Thomas, a backup PG for the Kings. Thomas torched him. I mean torched him. Lin looked so lost, i wouldnt have been shocked if he was back in the D-League before the game was over. He went 0 for 2, 2 turnovers and 4(!) personal fouls in 4 minutes. He looked terrible and i never gave him a second thought.

Now all of the sudden he is the greatest thing in the NBA since sliced bread. A lot of debate has swirled around his popularity. He has been compared to Tim Tebow, Floyd Mayweather, Jr. played the race card, and Madison Square Garden was savvy enough to pick up on "Linsanity" within the first couple of games. First thing's first. He is not comparable to Tim Tebow. The stories are totally different. Sure Lin has exposed his spirituality to the world as well and he was a player with little to no expectations, but he came with absolutely no hype. I mean none. Tebow was the talk of the NFL Draft in 2010, and more was debated about his potential successes and failures in the NFL than any other subject. Most casual NBA fans had no idea who Jeremy Lin was 14 days ago. It's not the same story.

So why the hype? I don't think Floyd Mayweather, Jr. is very far off playing the race card. If it was say Bismack Biyombo of the Charlotte Bobcats going off for 25 and 12 rebounds with 3 blocks a game the hype machine wouldn't be nearly as revved up. Sure Biyombo was a lottery pick this, but expectations of his success were pretty low this year. The fact that he is Asian is surely the number one causal factor of his extraordinary fame the last 10 days. You can just see David Stern in his office in New York breathing a sigh of relief and helping the hype machine along. Not only did this finally help take away some of the funk from the season but he does it internationally, a market Stern also has one of his little snake eyes looking at. Despite European and South American successes in international play, China is the biggest international market for basketball. With Yao Ming's retirement, the NBA lost its Asian ambassador. It couldn't be happier for Lin's success and I wouldn't be surprised if Stern was pulling strings behind the scenes making sure the hype stays there for a while. I mean you can just see it. That first game itself was a top story line. You never see that for a lot players who get a 25/7/5. I know Tyreke Evans did it a bunch as a rookie, but his first 25/5/5 game didnt get this same press.

Sure he is flashy, and sure he went to Harvard, and sure he has that whole undrafted, end of the bench storyline going for him. But thats not why he is so hyped. He's so hyped because he's of Asian descent. It's not a bad thing, but let's not be afraid to call it as it is. I'm not sure that he continues success or even settles in as a 16+/8+ assists, but i will say this to the naysayers, it doesn't matter who you play in the NBA, even if NY has had an easier schedule, not a lot of players can even put together the kind of statistical week and a half hes had.

Besides Jeremy Lin's outstanding play acting as a resuscitator for this year's NBA season and grabbing the spotlight in the current sports vacuum, the NBA has been chugging along at its breakneck pace and we are already upon the All Star break in just one more week. As always there were snubs and players who didn't deserve to make it. Obviously Dirk, is the goat on the Western Conference team. I remember reading article just a few days before the lockout ended that he was just now starting to consider playing basketball overseas to start to get into shape after months off. This whole first half of the season, with the exception of the last week he was awful by his standards and definitely not an All-Star. No other major star has had to miss an entire week's worth of games doing cardio to get into shape. I was pretty disappointed by his first half. It's similar to Paul Pierce making the East. He was pretty sloppy for most of this first half and even though Rondo was hurt Rondo has definitely been better than Pierce. Granger has also been a very strong presence for the Pacers who right now in the mix for the 4th seed with Eastern stalwarts Orlando and Atlanta.

The idea of an All-Star game seems silly to me and im curious to see how the players approach it. These players have spent this first half rounding into shape and half-assing it on back to backs to preserve themselves for the stretch run. I think they salivate at the opportunity to sit on their ass during the All-Star game. They should have just taken the four day break and used it to help chop up the schedule a little better and maybe even avoid teams having back to back to backs. No one really cares about the game this year as most players are pretty undeserving.
 

 

The first half of the season has gone pretty much according to script. Young hungry teams like Philadelphia, Indiana, Miami, Oklahoma City, and the Clippers are all excelling. Old veteran teams like San Antonio, Boston, Dallas, and the Lakers are all treading water, doing just enough to be in the playoff mix. If you told me on Opening Day that the top 8 teams in the first half in the East would be Chicago, Miami, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Orlando, Indiana, Boston and New York I wouldnt blink an eye. Those were clearly the top 8 heading into the season and nothing has changed. Ditto for the West, with one exception, Houston in over Memphis. Otherwise I think on opening day everyone expected OKC, the Clippers, San Antonio, Dallas, the Lakers, Nuggets and Trail Blazers to be in the mix. Memphis and the Jazz sitting on the outside is a little more of a shocker but cetainly nothing jaw dropping. I think this has contributed to boredom with this season. Not only is the play subpar, but there just havent been any shocking teams making a huge first half run. This season was designed for a young raw team like the Timberwolves, Wizards or the Warriors to make some buzz and make a playoff run, but none of them have done it thus far. As usual, the NBA season doesn't really start until Round 1 of the playoffs. Thank god I have fantasy basketball to keep me entertained.