“When I played against Jeremy Lin”

You can never put down a good man especially a God fearing man.

This article is a disgrace. Who cares what a bunch of cornell players are saying about JLin. Cornell??!! Just because JLin is successful (and Asian) doesn't mean white journalists should come up with a story that would insinuate JLin isn't.

What sets Jeremy Lin apart is his attitude. When you're humble you're able to see the big picture. His attitude has allowed him to be honest with himself and play to his strengths and improve his weaknesses. Jeremy Lin is a better player than he was 2 years ago. And I bet you Jeremy Lin is a better player than he was yesterday. Too many players have become spoiled or selfish. Too many players have a false sense of entitlement. It's actually sad that we are applauding a guy for working hard, being humble, and playing good basketball. That should be a given. Other than the game winner in Toronto he hasn't done anything amazing. He's not doing anything physically that the other point guards over 6ft can't do. He's just playing smart, unselfish basketball. Something every player especially point guards should be doing. He keeps his dribble alive, he drives HARD, he finishes, he's a willing passer, and he takes high % shots. Sounds easy right? Well for some reason other guys can't or I should say won't do these things. More GMs and coaches need to find guys willing to improve themselves and the team. Ability and talent only matters when the player has the correct attitude. We have too many Andray Blatches and not enough Trevor Bookers on NBA rosters. I watch every game and I'm rooting for Jeremy. He's showing people that "they" (coaches and GMs) can be wrong and shouldn't ever overlook any player.

Harvard almost beat Connecticut with Lin going 30 and 9 and that was the year Connecticut won the NC, for God's sake. No freakin' Cornell players do that.

It continues to amaze me that people claim Lin didn't have an outstanding basketball career. He played on Harvard. Harvard. Even in the Ivy league Harvard sucked. He led them to the best season they'd had in decades. Jeremy was the focus of every defense he played every game. He was the only player in the conference to be in the top 10 for every performance stat. His rsb40 was off the charts, comparable to other NBA stars in college, and he actually raised his game against top 25 teams, like when he went 30 and 9 on Kemba Walker and had that sick two handed dunk in traffic in the last minute. Everyone remembers his game against John Wall in summer league. There's an attempted myth making by some folks to pretend Jeremy wasn't overlooked. If he'd ever had one game like this while with Golden State, blah, blah? He wasn't given a single opportunity to play extended minutes during meaningful time while with Golden State, so how do you propose that would have happened? He was yanked at the first turnover or bad looking shot. Regular players get to play through ugly looking plays. Every time Lin got a single real chance, he excelled. Against Mater Dei, Against Uconn, against John Wall, his one game in the D-league this year when he got a triple double. Lin got better, for sure. Young players always do! This isn't some great insight. But he DID display the requisite talent beforehand. Sorry, this jerk from Cornell is pushing some seriously sour grapes. In his imagination, he knows seven guys who could do what Lin is doing right now. What a doofus. Rebounds-Steals-Blocks/40 is a great way to tell if a college player has the athleticism to excel in the NBA. What were Cornell's 7 players' rsb40s, hmmm? http://hoopsanalyst.com/blog/?p=487

This makes me think of Bo McCalebb, who went undrafted and went to Europe, where he shored up his weaknesses. When we saw him in the FIBA WC's people kept talking about how he should have been picked up by an NBA team in the draft. The problem was that he actually wasn't that good at the time. He found a place where he could get playing time (and $$$) and improved his game. Lin's gotten a lot better since going undrafted out of Harvard - makes me think teams should let more guys compete for the spots at the end of the bench instead of packing them with "safe" guys that can't really play anymore. Mike James almost took his spot. Good to hear that the D-League might finally be starting to earn that "D" these days.

I have been a Lin fan since he was signed by the Warriors. I have never heard of him but was attracted to the fact that he was a local Bay Ara kid who made it to the SHOW. My high school played against Palo Alto high in the same division. There were issues with his overall skills but he had flashes of brilliance. And he really didn't have a shot of getting many minutes with the Warriors because Ellis and Curry were the headliners. But then Lin got minutes when Curry went down with back to back to back ankle sprains. So Lin got more than garbage minutes for a few games. The challenge he had with the Warriors is that the Warriors would mostly play him on the road because the home fans went nuts every time Lin touched the ball. The coaches and management thought that it was best for his development to only start on the road and not have all that pressure of the home fans cheering just because the ball was in Lin's hands. The Warriors wanted to keep Lin. They needed depth on the bench because Curry's ankle was still a question. But then all the attempted deals for a center from Chandler, then Jordan led the Warriors to release Lin for salary cap space to be able to make an offer to Jordan. That is the primary reason he was let go. The Warriors liked him. But they didn't see or expect anything like this. Even Curry mentioned how Lin had skills, but was still a work in progress. I was bummed when we let him go. Like I said, I like it when local kids get a chance with their home team. But I am so happy for Lin because he had to really stay positive and keep training to get to where he is today in such a short period of time. He had to work on some things when on the Warriors and here he is just a year removed and all of a sudden, everything clicked. I believe some of it is "right time, right place, right system". I believe that he was held back some because of race...but most of that was in high school, college and some with the NBA scouts/teams. There is a story from Lin's high school coach who remembered Lin going to a bball camp and one of the coaches/trainers told Lin the volleyball camp was in a different gym/ or later in the day or something like that. But once he got on the floor to show his skills, he opened eyes...but not to the point of Linsanity. But his personality, his work ethic, his humble attitude, and his passion all contributed to his current success. Underdog is also a key factor. Lin is just more than a one sentence summary. There had to be a lot of factors taken into account to create the Lin we see today. That is life...we are the sum of our parts and experiences. Lin made the most of his opportunities when given a shot, but he also had to create some of his opportunities to get those shots. At the end of the day, I have never been a fan of NY teams. Yet Lin has made me a Knick fan. I like the players on the team, I like the coach, but I love how Lin helped make the Knicks a TEAM! I am actually more excited to watch a Knick game than a Warrior game...and I am the ultimate homer fan. That is why I know this is special for me because it has changed me as a fan.

Are you a moron? Ample opportunities? You do know that Lin didn't play in the month of January and March right? Keith Smart was so caught up in sukkking Monta Cancer Ellis's member that he didn't give Lin a chance in a lost season. Ample opportunities? Are you for real? Do your home work before writing man. You are a disgrace.

I think everyone agrees that race factors in our perception. As Beckley Mason puts it: "Lin was rumored to be an NBA prospect after four strong if unspectacular seasons at Harvard. He was never the Ivy League MVP, but his quickness, efficiency, and yes, his race, was turning heads nationally". And race makes me think about that great Rolland-Garros finale between a 17-years old Michael Chang and a prime Ivan Lendl. Remember Chang's swagger? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McKWI5OmD8A But race, I think, is far from the main question asked and, personnally, the least of my interests. What about that "royal jelly" which makes some players thrive? Is there a specific trait that Lin possesses and that scouts have missed? Is it a single specific trait or a combination of multiple traits and situation/environment? Which stars shall we align? Is there an advanced stat for swagger? Was Lin really that good at Harvard, and if so, did the coaching staff at Harvard stop Lin from showing his otherworldly talents, or provide him with tools to keep on improving? How many other talented players have passed under the radar?I'm sure D'Antoni missed out on Jared Jordan, and I don't even know who Jared Jordan is! Is the D-League full of undiscovered gems that I should sign in my NBA 2k "Association" mode? What I find amazing about J. Lin is not that he is Asian. It's that he had his breakout with the Knicks, albeit, as you mention, "out of desperation". It would have surprised no one if he had been drafted by the Spurs and groomed for 3 years from NBDL to garbage minutes to rotation. The breakout wouldn't have been as spectacular, but maybe a little funnier in their somewhat self-deprecative way. But even the Spurs didn't draft him, hey I'm sure those blind morons would have drafted Darko above Duncan, they're so bad (yeah, kidding). Anyway, Jeremy Lin finally made it "big time", and it's a great story. Let's not ruin it with racial grudges like MJ throwing people under the bus in his HOF induction speech. You know, when Rocky stood toe-to-toe with Apollo Creed, he didn't complain afterward about never having been given a chance before because he was some guido from Philly or something. No, he just kissed Adriaaaaaaan with his glorious swollen face and someone peeled onions in the theater and we were happy on our way home. And I need to find that Chang-Lendl game.

Lin did not have an outstanding college career. He had a good college career. If he had put those numbers up in a good basketball conference, he would have had a great college career. As it stands, it was probably only pretty good. I'm not going to say race didn't play a role, because it absolutely did and it always does, but he still did make an NBA team. The Warriors might have even picked him up due, in part, to his race. It could be seen as a marketing gimmick for them, and if you paid attention to what happened out here in the Bay last year, it's pretty clear that it worked. Crowds went wild for him. The Yellow Mamba nickname worked great for him- not because of his comparisons to Kobe, but to Brian Scalabrine, the White Mamba. Every time he touched the court, the crowd cheered like crazy, even though it was almost always in garbage time. I think Lin was probably good enough to play last year, because you don't get this talented out of no where, but as Beckley pointed out, he needed some royal jelly. He needed the confidence of his coach. He needed to be given the reins. As a Warriors, he would have never been given that with Curry and Monta as "star" guards. Out there, he was probably the 4th best guard on the roster after those 2 and Reggie Williams. I think the biggest reason that the reason the dubs missed on him is because there weren't minutes.

I find it telling that many basketball writers are doing everything they can to dispel the notion that Lin might have been overlooked because of his race. In this case, Mason is using the iron clad proof of one player's experience vs Lin during his college as some kind of evidence that Lin just wasn't that good. In turn this completely ignores the fact that Lin had an OUTSTANDING college career. Kobe said it himself, these kinds of things usually don't come out of nowhere. Lin has always had the potential and has shown it on numerous occasions, from leading his high school team to a state championship, to Harvard where had a great career, to the D-League where he more than held his own, and now on the big stage of the NBA. And in the process he was waived by 2 teams, nearly a third and only given a chance out of desperation. I'm not saying that his work and improvement have not played a role in his ascension, or that he was always a usable NBA point guard. And I'm not saying that Mason is a racist or anything, but what other purpose does this story serve except to say nobody could have seen that Lin was any good. Stories like this support the idea that race doesn't contribute to how people are evaluated - something that bears out in how strongly race plays a part in evaluating white vs black players. In Lin's case, I think it's perfectly reasonable to speculate that race played a big role in why he was overlooked until now.

I think the biggest reason that attributed to Lin's success is his preparation. He kept training and training even when it seemed unlikely that he would ever become a part of a NBA roster. But, I also think he needed time to prepare. So, in retrospect, I feel that all those disappointments he went through gave him time and motivation to improve. Without them, I'm not sure if he'd have turned out as he has now. In other words, if someone gave him starters minutes from get-go, I don't think he would have become as impressive. Decent maybe, but definitely not Linsanity.