Who Is Jeremy Lin?

 

Courtesy: @NervousNeophyte

The majority of NBA scouts are trained to look at point guards based on how they use the ball in three ways:

1) Pass

2) Drive

3) SAT Scores

The New York Knickerbockers skipped step one and two and just got right to the Ivy league point. The MAN called Jeremy Lin has taken Madison Square Garden by storm . Jeremy Lin was originally pushing and pleading for an athletic scholarship from Stanford University about four to five years ago and was politely denied.

Mr. Lin continued to hit the books and found his way to a school called Harvard. From what people tell me Harvard is “not too shabby”. I remember hearing about an Asian kid from Harvard who had a really smooth shot and a nice step to the basket, but in retrospect, I and thousands of others never followed up on his game until he wore the Orange and Blue.

To be honest , I don’t think anyone followed up on his game in college considering he wasn’t drafted. Jeremy Lin was picked up and cut by the Golden State Warriors after sitting on the bench for a whole year and then getting another opportunity with the Houston (Home of Yao) Rockets. Unfortunately, the Houston Rockets had no room for Mr.Lin, so a team that has been up in the air for the past decade decided to give the Harvard man a shot.

Knicks head coach, Mike D’Antoni , wasn’t necessarily giving Jeremy Lin a “shot” to play. D’Antoni was giving him a chance to get paid and hold down a National Basketball Association bench spot. Lin obviously had no reason to complain.

Think about it…

If you know you can play basketball, and you have dedicated your whole life to playing basketball, wouldn’t you sit on the bench too?

At any rate , we all know the 2011-2012 Knickswere going down just as fast as the Jersey

Shore ratings on MTV. A lot of people , outside of New York , gave the Knicks no chance to compete in their eastern conference. I don’t necessarily blame any of the fans (myself included) for their ridicu”LIN” the Knicks for their decade of abysmal performances.

The Knicks were sitting on an 8-15 record until this man, god, point guard and Harvard grad decided to take over the world wide aspect of sports. Coach Mike D’Antoni was desperate for a point guard to run his offense efficiently, and he hit the b-ball jackpot. The best part about this creature called “LinSanity” is his unlikely story.

Jeremy Lin was cut by two different professional basketball teams, and during his current tenure with the Knicks, he was sent down to the D-League to work on his mechanics as a point guard. Rumor has it that the night before the Knicks faced off against the New (Brooklyn) Jersey Nets, Carmelo Anthony pleaded to Coach D’Antoni to give Jeremy Lin a shot to get some playing time.

D’Antoni really had no other choice considering every other player he gave the opportunity to play point guard has failed. The Knicks were desperate for a spark plug to get this team back on track, and dear lord have they found one.

Jeremy Lin destroyed the Nets and Utah Jazz for two wins, but the real test ahead was the Friday night match up against the storied-franchise Lakers. In the past five or six years, the Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant has used Madison Square Garden as a place to put on a solo show. Kobe Bryant holds the record for most points scored in a game at Madison Square Garden.

I personally have nothing against Kobe and the Lakers, but I needed to see if Lin was legit. So I decided to stay in that Friday night to watch the game, and I am so happy I did. Jeremy Lin scored 38 points compared to Kobe’s 34 and helped the Knicks defeat the Lakers for the first time in god knows when. My friends and I were literally rolling around the floor hugging and laughing because we couldn’t believe what we were seeing.

That night, Jeremy Lin was hitting shots over 7 footers , hitting shots double teamed going down the lane, and hitting shots in the corner where Kobe Bryant practically lives. The Knicks ended up winning that game, and that’s when “LinSanity” officially began.

Lin is of Asian descent, and he’s the first Asian-American player in the NBA since 1947. Yao Ming wasn’t born in America, so he obviously doesn’t count. Lin is getting thousands of casual NBA fans to become die-hard fans and making Knick games must-see television. Knick games are now being broadcast around the world, so people can watch the “LinSanity”.

Lin has become so popular especially in the world of Twitter where my timeline has been stockfull of Lin-Puns, some funny, some pathetic, but overall a great read because my Knicks are finally back to being the talk of the town and even the nation.

Today Jeremy Lin defeated the defending NBA champions, the Dallas Mavericks. The Mavericks were throwing every defensive scheme to try to stop Lin, but it just wasn’t working. Everytime Dallas would try to double team him at the top of the key, he would just dribble around both defenders and make the pass to find the open man.

The Knicks picked up super scorer J.R. Smith as a free agent yesterday. JR played in China the past few months because he believed there wouldn’t be an NBA season, and he wanted to get that paycheck. I don’t blame him either.

What JR brings to the table for the Knicks is another spot on shooter that will help them down the line when Lin and Carmelo will be double teamed. In two weeks the Knicks have transformed themselves into a serious playoff team. Beware because this team will not be an easy out in the playoffs.

Earlier in the year I wrote about how the big three for the Knicks (Melo, Amare, and Chandler) would take them to the promised land, but that was before all this LinSanity began. Now D’Antoni finally has a point guard in Lin to run his offense the correct and efficient way.

Lin is not only a great scorer, but he is an unbelievable passer with off the charts basketball IQ. The Knicks went from weak to power house. They went from having nobody on the bench to having one of the deepest benches in the league. Only the man upstairs knows how this season will play out, but as of now the city of New York is absolutely mad for the Knicks and “LinSanity.”

P.S. Since when did Novak become the second coming of Steve Kerr?

I LOVE IT!