THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15. 2012
MOVE OVER, TEBOW
PAGE 7
ONE-OF-A-KIND PLAYER
Nation's newest favorite
When the NFL season ended with last week's Super Bowl, "Tebowmania," a term used for the love of Denver quarterback Tim Tebow, ended with it. Afterward, fans craved a replacement.
Insert the new spark plug of the New York Knicks; Jeremy Lin. The six-foot-three point guard continues to impress, leading the Knicks to five-straight wins and scoring 134 points in his first four career starts. Lin is the only player in the NBA who has at least 20 points and seven assists in each of his four starts. He also scored 32 points in the first 22 names.
The NBA advertisements keep saying "BIG things are coming," but the league didn't know it was talking about Lin.
Still, many rally behind Lin for a different reason. Lin, an Asian-American, is the first Americanborn player of Taiwanese or Chinese descent to play in the NBA. Yao Ming, retired center of the Houston Rockets from 2002 to 2011, is one of China's best-known athletes. Lin may not be a seven-foot-six center, but as an Asian-American, he is developing into the next big thing.
Even though Lin had a successful college campaign, he was not selected in the NBA draft. Lin and other undrafted players had to impress organizations in the 2010 NBA Summer League, and several have been successful in their NBA careers.
Being an undrafted player may not be rare, but a Harvard graduate playing in the NBA is a different story.
If Harvard held an alumni game for its former basketball players who went on to play in the NBA, it would be a game of two-on-two. The list only consists of four players: Lin, Edward Smith, Saul Mariaschin and Wyndol Gray. Lin is the first Harvard graduate to play in the NBA since 1954.
In his senior year, he averaged 16.4 points, 4.4 rebounds and 4.5 assists and was again a selection for All-Ivy League First Team. He was one of 30 midseason candidates for the John R. Wooden Award and was one of 11 finalists for the Bob Cousy Award. Even Kansas' starting point guard Tyshawn Taylor isn't a finalist for the Cousy Award this year.
— Edited by Corinne Westeman
Ben Wallace, center of the Detroit Pistons, is one of two players who has won the NBA Defensive Player of the Year award four times. Bruce Bowen, small forward of the San Antonio Spurs from 2001 to 2009, was named to eight-consecutive NBA All-Defensive teams and won three titles.
Even if drafted, Lin would have been the first Ivy Leaguer selected since Jerome Allen of Penn in 1995. The last Ivy Leaguer to play in the NBA was Yale's Chris Dudley in 2003.
Lin graduated from Harvard in 2010 with a degree in economics, and he was also a tremendous basketball player. In his junior year, he was the only NCAA Division I men's basketball player who ranked in the top 10 in his conference for scoring, rebounding, assists, steals and four other categories. Lin also was a consensus selection for All-Ivy League First Team.
"Linsanity" may be the answer for fans craving a new hero, but should his emergence be a surprise? Yes and no.
First player in league history to score
20 points and rebounds in his first 4 career starts.
Tracking Lin's rise to fame
2006
After leading his team to the Division II California Interscholastic Federation state title, Lin is named National Player of the Year by the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Jose Mercury News.
2008
As a sophomore, Lin is named All-Ivy League Second Team.
June 24,2010
After graduating from Harvard, Lin is not selected in the 2010 NBA Draft.
Lin signs as a free agent with his hometown Golden State Warriors.
October 29, 2010
Lin makes his NBA debut for the Warriors. He records one steal in three minutes of play.
December 9,2011
Lin is waived by the Warriors so they can clear room to make an offer to forward Deandre Jordan.
December 12,2011
Lin is signed by the Houston Rockets. He is waived 12 days later.
December 27, 2011
Lin is signed by the New York Knicks.
January 20th,2012
Three days after being assigned to the Erie BayHawks of the NBA D-League, Lin puts up a triple-double. He is then recalled by the Knicks.
February 4,2012
Lin plays 36 minutes, scores 25 points and records seven assists. The Knicks start winning and the Jeremy Lin craze takes off.
Lin's not worth all the hype
But let's be realistic, as good as he has been, the media attention he is receiving is directly fueled by the need for New York to be relevant in all sports — especially in basketball.
First of all, I admit, Jeremy Lin has been very impressive since New York Knicks' head coach Mike D'antoni started giving him extended playing time. His numbers over those first five games, averaging 26.8 points and eight assists per game, are truly spectacular for someone who scored just 76 points last season.
If Lin were balling out in, say,
Portland, Ore., would the effect
be the same?
Before Lin came along, the Knicks hadn't been relevant since the Patrick Ewing era. Even after they acquired the superstar tandem of Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony, the brooms of rabid Boston fans swept them out of the NBA playoffs in the first round last year.
And before Lin became a rock star this month, the Knickerbockers sat seven games under .500, with their fan base wondering if a quality basketball team would ever call Madison Square Garden, one of the most famous sporting venues in the world, home again.
Now, he's the hero of basketball, the next great American underdog story, the next, dare I say it, Tim Tebow hype machine
I hold nothing against either Tebow or Lin; they both seem like upstanding citizens (although Tiger Woods showed that athletes aren't always who they appear to be), but I can't stand the hype media outlets pump out about their play.
Lin has received major playing time in such a small number of games that it is impossible to know how he will play over the course of an NBA career.
And if you check out Lin's statistics, he really hasn't been as good as billed. He does most of his scoring in the paint and is not a great three-point shooter, making just three of 17 shots from beyond the arc during his five-game miracle stretch.
And while the New York media made a big deal about his 38-point outburst against the nationally feared and overrated Los Angeles Lakers, an impressive feat nonetheless, they forgot to mention that the Lakers are a terrible road team this season (5-10 record) and that the main responsible for guarding Lin was well past his prime, 37-year-old Derrick Fisher.
So if you want to buy into the hype, go ahead, I'm not going to stop you. It's a good story, and 15 years down the road, there will probably be a Disney movie made about Lin. But let's wait and see if he can continue to play this well throughout a season before campaigning to give him a spot in the NBA All-Star Game.
- Edited by Caroline Kraft