The Taiwanese-American kid from California scored a career high tonight in a win over the L.A. Lakers. He has averaged 28.5 ppg over the last 4 games, on 57% shooting.
Overall, a pretty lousy game for both teams, though. The Laker strategy mostly involved having Kobe shoot fall-away jumpers over double-teams. He made some of them, but we've seen him do that once or twice before, so it's not as interesting as watching Lin play. The Lakers' point guard Derek Fisher is a great guy, the last player remaining in the NBA who played on the famous '71 Knicks squad (if memory serves), but he is getting on in years and can't really keep up anymore with all the Chinese Harvard talent in the NBA these days. Andrew Bynum continues to be a very large person, but he seems less like a Lakers center (Mikan, Wilt, Kareem, Shaq) and more like a Clippers center (Benoit Benjamin, Michael Olowokandi).
Okay, the Lakers did have one interesting play where Kobe got trapped by a double team at the top of the key, and to keep from getting whistled for traveling (assuming traveling is still illegal in the NBA) intentionally slammed the ball off the backboard from 20 feet away. Since nobody on the Knicks had any idea what was going on, Kobe had no trouble grabbing the rebound of his intentional miss at the free throw line, and passing it out to a teammate for a wide open basket.
This concludes my commentary on the 2012 NBA season. See you in 2013!
Overall, a pretty lousy game for both teams, though. The Laker strategy mostly involved having Kobe shoot fall-away jumpers over double-teams. He made some of them, but we've seen him do that once or twice before, so it's not as interesting as watching Lin play. The Lakers' point guard Derek Fisher is a great guy, the last player remaining in the NBA who played on the famous '71 Knicks squad (if memory serves), but he is getting on in years and can't really keep up anymore with all the Chinese Harvard talent in the NBA these days. Andrew Bynum continues to be a very large person, but he seems less like a Lakers center (Mikan, Wilt, Kareem, Shaq) and more like a Clippers center (Benoit Benjamin, Michael Olowokandi).
Okay, the Lakers did have one interesting play where Kobe got trapped by a double team at the top of the key, and to keep from getting whistled for traveling (assuming traveling is still illegal in the NBA) intentionally slammed the ball off the backboard from 20 feet away. Since nobody on the Knicks had any idea what was going on, Kobe had no trouble grabbing the rebound of his intentional miss at the free throw line, and passing it out to a teammate for a wide open basket.
This concludes my commentary on the 2012 NBA season. See you in 2013!
Posts
102 comments:
There's probably a good chance he's on steroids or HGH. The NBA does not really test that aggressively.
Maybe word got around the NBA to go easy on him to make the game look more diverse and popular.
Or maybe he's just really awesome
You guys are such haters it's pathetic
"You guys are such haters it's pathetic"
I know but it's fun.
I watched the game. The kid looks like he's for real. Very impressive.
I don't watch basketball so for me the Jeremy Lin thing is only notable because of Steve Hsu's excited reaction to his success. Serves a vivid reminder of how much race really matters. Here you have a guy who was born in America, grew up in Iowa, benefited from everything America has to offer and has had basically no cultural links to China proper. And yet, on a whole, he still cares more about Chinese than anyone else.
Everyone cares about their own tribe more than others. Except white people - we stab each other in the back instead.
Serves a vivid reminder of how much race really matters.
I remember when I was little and noting how Larry Bird was my dad's favorite player. I didn't really "understand" race then, but I remember noting how Larry Bird was different from most of the other players.
When I got a bit older I remember watching Pacers games with my uncle and him always saying how he liked Austin Croshere the best and how he was his favorite player in the league. I remember thinking it was a bit odd back then because Croshere was mediocre and not really famous. But it doesn't seem that odd now in retrospect.
I rooted for the Jazz against Jordan and the Bulls in the Finals and it was partly because Stockton and Hornacek seemed like guys I could relate to and imagine being.
"Everyone cares about their own tribe more than others. Except white people - we stab each other in the back instead."
If this blog is any indication, you stab each other in the back WHILE caring for your own tribe.
The Jazz were starting 3-4 white guys in the late 90s and against the Bulls in the Finals. Malone was often the only black guy on the floor for the Jazz. That might have been the last time that happened. I can't remember any team like that during the 2000s.
Ok, he's got that weird look like Yo Yau. There's some hybridization going on here. Anyone up for betting on the admixture. I'd say something rooskie since there are so many desperate women out of that area. Could be an egg donor or sperm donor as well. These basketball stars didn't just emerge from better health or an accidental appropriate combination of genes.
"If this blog is any indication, you stab each other in the back WHILE caring for your own tribe."
It's because we just appear to belong to the same tribe.
Lin is a high quality person making him someone you feel good about rooting for.
Lin is good the way he goes to rim reminds me of gary payton he doesn't have the above the rim game but is super good at using his body to protect the ball and get off little scoop shots, his quickness(not the same as speed) and handle are top notch.
The reaction to his success is testament to the importance of Race.
Listening to sports Radio if you someone with a black accent call in its virtually guarenteed they will downplay his success, same thing for the pundits. White pundits tend to echo the black pundits just less dismissively but the white public is excited by Lin as of course is the asian community(people with obvious asian accents don't seem to call in to sport radio though).
If you accept that most people are ethno-centric this reaction is no suprise. Asians are very pro-asian and Lin is super exciting to them. Blacks dismiss lin he threatens the narrative of black athletic dominance just like Black sports pundits despised Tim Tebow.
The interesting thing is the white reaction to lin. He isn't white but I think white fans are sick of black athletes, the thug culture that dominates the NBA is big part of its dimnishing appeal to fans. Lin represents the anti-thesis of that its something that whites can get behind and do so without feeling racist.
I wish white people would support there own the way every other group does.
Aside from his being Asian. Even the most resentful racists among you must admit this is a hella great story. If you can't admit that, you really don't deserve to be a part of the species.
If this blog is any indication, you stab each other in the back WHILE caring for your own tribe.
Truth, you seem to get a comment or two in in every single post. Early in the threads too. Seriously, you seem to do nothing all day but constantly check Steve's blog.
HMMM it does seem that Fisher is too young to have played pro ball in the 70s, although perhaps further corroboration may be attained later. I do have a page from the print campaign he did for the L.A. Gear sneakers with the controversial blinking LED bulbs (linked to gang incidents throughout SoCal), am sending along to Vice Mag post-haste
"Even the most resentful racists among you must admit this is a hella great story"
Maybe I could, if the 'hella' great story of a Woodhead (Dvision 2 ball) or a Welker (non-scholarship player) weren't ignored. Listening to the LA local news tonight was like reading a 'Paul Kersey' column about white football players, 'undrafted', etc'. But that sort of coverage is, apparently, only acceptable for other than whites.
I wish white people would support there own the way every other group does.
The current Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni was born in West Virginia but is a dual citizen of the US and Italy and had a nice career playing and coaching in Italy. He also played for the Italian national team in the Euro championships. Being of Italian descent probably helped him somewhat with these parts of his career. It obviously did with playing for the Italian national team. He also got his brother, Dan D'Antoni, on the Sun coaching staff as an assistant and brought him over to the Knicks when he moved there.
"it does seem that Fisher is too young to have played pro ball in the 70s"
Sorry, my mistake, he's the last player from the '86 Celtics.
D'Antoni's style might be good for Lin. Point guards with decent handling ability and vision can do well under D'Antoni's fast-paced, fast breaking, offense oriented play.
D'Antoni's style actually goes back to his father, who coached HS b-ball in WV and Ohio and ran an offense oriented fast break style of play that set HS scoring records in the 50s.
"Listening to sports Radio if you someone with a black accent call in its virtually guarenteed they will downplay his success, same thing for the pundits."
Magic Johnson is talking up Jeremy Lin right now on Sports Center. The NY Giants defensive captain, Justin Tuck, who was court side, tweeted his admiration of Lin tonight. Those are just two black commentators who have been gracious and positive about Lin.
"Maybe I could, if the 'hella' great story of a Woodhead (Dvision 2 ball) or a Welker (non-scholarship player) weren't ignored."
They just lost the Super Bowl. If Lin lost his first 4 starts, but played well in them, he wouldn't be getting nearly the attention he's been getting. People like to focus on winners.
One of the most embarrassing things about this blog is the resentfulness of a handful of people towards the success of people of other races.
I hope the secret egg donor theory was a joke.
If Lin lost his first 4 starts, but played well in them, he wouldn't be getting nearly the attention he's been getting. People like to focus on winners.
If he starts sucking and gets benched, people will forget about him.
Hideo Nomo was hyped when he had that great first year and when Japanese MLB players were rare, but he was quickly forgotten. Now if people remember him it's just as that pitcher with that really weird wind-up.
"Maybe I could, if the 'hella' great story of a Woodhead (Dvision 2 ball) or a Welker (non-scholarship player) weren't ignored."
They're in the shadows of the stars on their team - the golden boy star QB Brady and genius coach Belichick.
The people hyping this are white and black. There really aren't any asians on espn or sports media and publishing. I don't think the whites and blacks hyping this are motivated by xenophilia or self-hatred.
I don't get the Clippers. Why do they exist? Why does LA have 2 teams?
Who makes up the fan base for the Clippers? Is it a particular region of Southern Cal?
"Maybe I could, if the 'hella' great story of a Woodhead (Dvision 2 ball) or a Welker (non-scholarship player) weren't ignored."
Tim Tebow is a better example, and he's been hyped appropriately.
Tebow had a good college career but there were doubts about how well he'd do in the NFL and there still are doubts. But when he started doing well he got hyped pretty big.
"Seriously, you seem to do nothing all day but constantly check Steve's blog."
I discovered early on that I didn't like working, so I found a way to avoid it and still have lots of money.
"Truth, you seem to get a comment or two in in every single post. Early in the threads too. Seriously, you seem to do nothing all day but constantly check Steve's blog."
And he's not the only one. Ahem.
It's more that once there's an asian breakthrough in a new field of endeavor the philes around here claim they're one step closer to world domination!
It gets old, really. I wasn't reading the blog when Lucy Liu came along but I bet she got a whole post devoted to her acting career. Years later, however, it obviously wasn't the shape of things to come and neither is this.
Truth: "If this blog is any indication, you stab each other in the back WHILE caring for your own tribe."
Thank you. So at least some progress compared to outside the reactionary/HBD sphere.
Gilbert Pinfold.
The steveosphere is prone to seeing ungracious black people.
However it's just not showing up.
“Players don’t usually come out of nowhere,” [Kobe] Bryant, who scored 34 points on 11-of-29 shooting, said after the game. “If you go back and take a look, his skill level was probably there from the beginning, but no one ever noticed. … It’s a great story. It’s a testament to perseverance and hard work. I am sure he has put in a great deal of work to always have that belief in himself, now he has the opportunity to show it.”
> Sorry, my mistake, [Lin is] the last player from the '86 Celtics.
Date of birth August 9, 1974
Heh, heh. Steve funny.
"They [Welker, Woodhead] just lost the Super Bowl."
Wouldn't that mean they had *won* a bunch of times until few days ago?
The Tom Brady explanation might be more convincing -- but he himself was a 199th draft pick.
Who makes up the fan base for the Clippers?
Basketball fans who can't get tickets to the Lakers.
No Steve, your memory isn't correctly serving you. Derek Fisher is definitely a veteran but 40 years ago he wasn't playing for the 1971 Knicks as you wrote in this post. He was drafted in 1996, the same year as Kobe. Don't you think it would be big news if the Lakers had a star point guard who was over 60? This was one of the most innumerate statements ever in the Sailersphere, completely missed by the first 30 Lin-mania infected comment authors.
Steve Hsu's cousin Richard Chang was almost the first Jeremy Lin. 6"7 forward at Cal and maybe still the only full Asian-American to get multiple D1 scholarship offers. Lin was the only California HS player in history not to get a D1 offer. I wonder why?
Econ major.
So I guess all the commenters hate him, yes? Pseudoscience and all that?
" Tim Tebow is a better example, and he's been hyped appropriately."
What? Tebow is terrible and ridiculously over-hyped. SI had him listed top 5 for MVP at one point.
"There's probably a good chance he's on steroids or HGH. The NBA does not really test that aggressively."
HGH for guards has been the hand-check rule change.
Match that to D'Antoni's PG-firendly (to put it very mildly) system -- a system that, when working, is an all-offense, no-defense stat-creator --and you have a new "star"; Lin has some talent, like Steve Nash (before the rule change and Seven Second or Less, who was Nash?), but would he be putting up these numbers for any other team?
the jeremy lin situation is a simple failure of scouting, as i've pointed out many times now. professional scouting, where "the only thing that matters is winning, the only thing the counts is putting the best players in the game", has been deteriorating steadily for 20 years now, and acutely for the last 10. today, only the african players play. the majority of scouts, coaches, and managers, cannot accurately evaluate players anymore.
i actually saw an NFL scout's 2012 NFL draft evaluation in which his comment was that the giants were probably going to draft a linebacker in the first round, because chase blackburn had no business starting in the NFL. let that sink in. a player who played well against a great offense, in the superbowl, has no business playing, according to this "professional". now we've entered sheer reality denial mode.
"Overall, a pretty lousy game for both teams, though."
the compact schedule which david stern has forced the teams into has lead to the worst level of play that i've ever seen. charles barkley commented on it recently. it's slop out there. the players are tired, even the refs are tired.
the NBA also did not really resolve the issues it needed to address during the lockout. indisputably, 1 team should have been contracted, and more realistically, at least 2.
the league is extremely arrogant, and refuses to acknowledge that basketball is far less popular than ESPN wants you to believe. there is a limit to how many people want to see their 10 africans juggling an orange ball show, especially in the eastern conference. the NBA would rather go back to losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year than admit tens of millions of people just don't care about the NBA the way ESPN tells them they're supposed to care. personally i drew the line when ESPN began openly rooting for specific players instead of simply reporting the sports news.
now it's just obnoxious. all they do is show NBA games, ignore other sports, and replay mid-game 2 point dunks, often in a losing effort, as if they were the most important thing happening in sports that day. routinely now, a 2 point dunk in a game the player and team lost, is more important than anything else.
While Fisher does display some old school tendencies his nba career only tracks back to the mid 90s.
Andrew Bynum continues to be a very large person, but he seems less like a Lakers center (Mikan, Wilt, Kareem, Shaq) and more like a Clippers center (Benoit Benjamin, Michael Olowokandi).
Sounds like you just started paying attention to the NBA when this Lin HBD story started. Bynum is pretty much acknowledged by everyone to be the best center in the league behind Dwight Howard. It's true that there aren't that many good centers these days, but he's still way better than Olowakandi and Benjamin ever were.
I discovered early on that I didn't like working, so I found a way to avoid it and still have lots of money.
You're on welfare? Disability?
Interesting blog post from 2 years ago before the 2010 NBA draft from a "Moneyball" style b-ball statistician that predicted Lin might do pretty well:
http://hoopsanalyst.com/blog/?p=487
"Any team looking to find a starting PG in the 2010 NBA draft had best win the lottery and get the top pick. A year after the legendary PG draft of 2009, the pickings for playmakers are going to be thin. That doesn’t mean there won’t be a player or two who surprise the experts though.
The best candidate to pull off such a surprise might be Harvard’s Jeremy Lin. The reason is two numbers Lin posted, 2-point FG pct and RSB40. Lin was at .598 and 9.7. This is impressive on both counts. These numbers show NBA athleticism better than any other, because a high score in both shows dominance at the college level on both ends of the court."
"But Lin put up his numbers in the Ivy League, while most of the players on the list played in major conferences. This is a big deal. For players from a small conference the jump to the NBA is a lot tougher. They don’t get the exposure, unless their team makes the tournament. They need to be that much better statistically to stand out. Lin made his mark in the preseason when he averaged 23.3 PPG while shooting 63% in a 3-game stretch against UConn, BC and Georgetown. Typically players from small colleges see their numbers dip, sometimes drastically, when stepping up in competition. That Lin was able to not only be competitive, but excel in these situations is impressive."
"I like Jeremy Lin as a PG prospect, but he isn’t without flaws and concerns. He isn’t a great passer yet and he didn’t score as frequently as a prospect from a small college should. Both numbers are in the grey area though. They’re lower than I’d like them to be, but not low enough that I’d say Jeremy Lin was doomed as a prospect. That being noted, he does bring that combination of a high 2-point pct. and RSB40, which has been a very, very good thing for aspiring NBA PGs to have on their college report card in past years. This is a weak year for both PGs and combo guards. After John Wall there are no sure things. Jeremy Lin might be the #2 PG available in this draft. He looks to me like a sleeper in the mold of George Hill. He appears to have the skills to become at least a usable combo guard. If he can get the passing thing down and handle the point, Jeremy Lin is a good enough player to start in the NBA and possibly star."
"someone with a black accent call in its virtually guarenteed they will downplay his success, same thing for the pundits."
" Blacks dismiss lin he threatens the narrative of black athletic dominance just like Black sports pundits despised Tim Tebow."
Wrooooooong again (big suprise)
From the Twitisphere:
Spike Lee (@SpikeLee): Jeremy "Kobe Wuz Smokin' But I Wasn't Joke-"Lin. Tonight Was NO FLUKE. I Seen It Wit' My Own 4 EYES. JLin Is LEGIT.NBA DEAL WITH IT.YA-DIG???
Amar'e Stoudemire (@Amareisreal): Thanks to Jeremy Lin & The Knicks, Y'all help me get my mind off my Bro for a few hours, Thx. Great game guys. Enjoy the win. Travel safe.
Jared Dudley (@JaredDudley619): OMG!!!!!! Jeremy Lin is putting on a show!!!!! This is a Great Story, the man was sleepin on his teammates couch! now MSG is chanting M-V-P!
Roger Mason Jr. (@MoneyMase): Jeremy Lin is an inspiration. A week ago, nobody thought he could play, but he knew different. A lot of us are waiting for that opportunity.
Detroit Lions safety Chris Harris (@ChrisHarrisNFL): Jeremy Lin is definitely making a name for himself. He's becoming a household name
Chuck D (@MrChuckD): It is unbelievable I've never seen anything like this before ..in basketball It's like some movie Jeremy SHO Lin Occupies the NBA heGotGame
Gabrielle Union (@itsgabrielleu): Jeremy Lin...WOW WOW WOW...if u ever thought about givin up on ur dreams...DON'T!
Candace Parker (@Candace_Parker): I don't want to leave this game.....dude Jeremy Lin!! OMGGGGGGGG man I dnt wana go to shootaround
Lamarcus Aldridge
✔
@aldridge_12
Jeremy Lin does it again vs the Lakers!
Jared Zwerling: Kobe on Lin: "It's a great story. It's a testament to perservance and hard work. It's a good example to kids everywhere." Twitter
Beto Duran: Bynum on Lin "he's been hot...we added to his hype and kept him in league for 10 years" Twitter
Rudy Gay: Jeremy Lin is killing right now, I'm always rooting for the underdogs Twitter
Roger Mason: Jeremy Lin is an inspiration. A week ago, nobody thought he could play, but he knew different. A lot of us are waiting for that opportunity. Twitter
Hassan Whiteside: Man I told y'all my homie @Jeremy Lin was nice I said it back in summer league they was sleepin on him Twitter
Tommy Beer: For those interested, Landry Fields revealed that the book he and Lin are flipping thru in their pregame handshake is actually a bible Twitter
Alex Kennedy: Hawks players are glued to the TV in the locker room, watching Jeremy Lin. Twitter
Alex Kennedy: Immediately after Magic-Hawks game ends, ATL players were asking for Jeremy Lin updates. They all started yelling when told he has 22 and 5. Twitter
I mean, guys, if your'e going to be a racist, fine, lots of successful men in this country were racists, BUT...DON'T...BE...AN...EFFFIN'...SISSSY!
I mean this whole, (insert high nasal whiny voice here) "well I only hate blacks because they hate me" thing with your silly cherry-picking the news, makes people assume you have 1/4 inch dicks. It really REALLY looks bad.
Hate someone on your own and DON'T, GOD-DAMNED, WAIT FOR PERMISSION for Christ sakes.
There's probably a good chance he's on steroids or HGH. The NBA does not really test that aggressively.
He certainly doesn't look that way, and there's nothing inconsistent between his current play and his past success. He led his team to the California state championship in high school and was the best player in Harvard history while putting up huge performances against highly ranked opponents like UConn. He basically wasn't getting a shot for I think two reasons. One is race/racism. The second is that he's actually not a complementary player, he's a guy who needs to dominate the ball to a certain extent in order to thrive. That means he needed an NBA team not just to give him some playing time, but actually to let this Asian/Harvard kid run the offense and star. The situation with the Knicks was an amazing coincidence that fit his needs perfectly -- the team had run out of viable point guards because of injuries, was on a losing streak and ready to try anything, and had a coach with an offensive system that needed an aggressive, ball-dominating point guard. It was the perfect match.
Last night's game was a blast. There was some very gritty, physical play and the Lakers really tried to rough up Lin and throw him off, but couldn't. The reason the quality of play looked a little sloppy was that the Lakers were coming off a tough overtime game the night before and the Knicks had most of their stars missing.
And to the people saying that blacks are prejudiced against Lin somehow...have you been watching his teammates? The rest of the NBA? They are having as much fun with this as anyone. Even Metta World Peace AKA Ron Artest wishes him well .
Aside from his being Asian. Even the most resentful racists among you must admit this is a hella great story. If you can't admit that, you really don't deserve to be a part of the species.
People who couldn't care less about basketball don't deserve to be part of the species? I find that odd, would you care to elaborate?
It may seem non-whites are more tribal in the West cuz they are minorities. But there isn't much racial unity in Africa and India. Blacks will kill blacks over tribal differences, Hindus and Muslims who look alike will kill another over religion.
"I discovered early on that I didn't like working, so I found a way to avoid it and still have lots of money."
Are you the one who sends me emails about some bank acct in Africa?
Don't you have to hit the rim with the shot to avoid the traveling charge? Or does that just apply to the 24-second clock? And what if Charlie Wi hangs on to win the AT&T?
Here's another piece of data suggesting that he's been on steroids or HGH. Both his parents are 5'6" while he's 6'3":
http://www.denverpost.com/commented/ci_16724722?source=commented-nuggets
"The 6-foot-3 Lin is the son of two 5-6 Taiwanese immigrants"
Derek Fisher was born in 1974, Steve; if he'd played for the Celtics in 1986, he was only twelve when he did so.
According to stats on the NBA website, he was a rookie in the league during the season of 1996-97, when he played for the Lakers.
He does not appear to have ever played on the Celtics.
@Fenris:
I totally see what you are talking about with his Gary Payton skills!
Payton had a very unique way of going to the rim. In the two highlight packages I have seen of Lin, he's got that same odd style, where his body looks almost herky-jerky in the way he uses his arms and legs to protect the ball. But the ball moves smoothly itself and he finishes with a very soft touch.
Glad I'm not the only one who noticed that!
"One of the most embarrassing things about this blog is the resentfulness of a handful of people towards the success of people of other races.
I hope the secret egg donor theory was a joke."
It is pretty pathetic but I think Bruce Lee was 1/4 Austrian. And Lin could be of Northern Chinese descent. Remember that Mongols went to Russia, brought back some hefty white chicks and had kids with them. So, maybe half-breed Mongols with some white blood mated with some North Chinese. North Chinese are bigger than Southern Chinese.
Could Lin have some white blood? Mebbe, possibly transferred via Mongols who abducted from white women from Russia long ago. Pietro Mennea held the 200 m record for 17 yrs. A white guy. But being a southern Italian, could he have had some black blood? Is it wrong to ask. And mebbe Rocky Marciano had some black blood too. Italy was once invaded by Moors, some of whom had considerable black genes and indeed some were black.
On the other hand, he don't look very white to me. He looks pretty chinish. Maybe, Asians could be better at team sports like basketball if they loosen up more. It could be China sucks at basketball not only cuz of geek factor but cultural lame factor. Asian athletes just do as coaches say and don't develop their own styles and personalities. Larry Bird developed his own way of playing. If he had just followed orders from coaches, he might not have been as good. So, maybe Chinese will take some lesson from Lin. Maybe being Asian-AMERICAN, he developed a more individualistic style of playing. Though basketball is a team sport, it's really a blending of different styles and talents. If all players are taught to play the same or develop generic skills, team's not gonna be so good.
"Orchestra is on the other side of campus" ROTFL!!!!!
"Lin says this occurred at most if not all Ivy League gyms."
Wait a minute. I thought Ivy Leaguers were supposed to be liberal.
Sophia Chua valedictory
http://youtu.be/-b6XHgcTzDs
Could Lin have some white blood? Mebbe, possibly transferred via Mongols who abducted from white women from Russia long ago
These are just legends. There's no genetic evidence of Russian blood among Mongols or Chinese.
Rex Walters is half-Japanese though he doesn't look Japanese.
"These are just legends. There's no genetic evidence of Russian blood among Mongols or Chinese."
"The vast majority of Mongols have black hair and brown eyes, although a certain number of Mongols, particularly the Oirat tribe in western Mongolia tend to exhibit lighter features such as fair skin, blue or green eyes, varying shades of brown hair, and sometimes even red or blonde hair.[25] Some of the Mongols today who exhibit some slight Caucasoid features most likely stem from historical intermixing with ancient Central Asian and Siberian Europoids, as opposed to recent intermixing with Slavics and other Europeans.[26]"
Wiki article says 'Eurasian' features of some Mongols originate from Central Asia than Slavic peoples, but Central Asian Eurasianism is partly a mix of Asian and Slavic strains.
He does not appear to have ever played on the Celtics.
Paging Pollack submarine door, Pollack submarine door, please pick up the white courtesy phone...
"Are you the one who sends me emails about some bank acct in Africa?"
Are you the one who responds with your bank acct. #?
Wiki article says 'Eurasian' features of some Mongols originate from Central Asia than Slavic peoples, but Central Asian Eurasianism is partly a mix of Asian and Slavic strains.
There were no Russians back then, and there might not have been Slavs back then either.
"Slight Caucasoid features" could have come from anywhere, including South Asia or Iran or the Mideast.
"Derek Fisher was born in 1974, Steve; if he'd played for the Celtics in 1986, he was only twelve when he did so."
Sorry, I meant that Fisher is the last guy still in the league who was on the '65 Celtics. When Havlicek stole the ball, Fisher was part of the double-team: little known true fact.
I discovered early on that I didn't like working, so I found a way to avoid it and still have lots of money.
"Lots of money" - you mean lots of credit?
Let me guess - you've been rolling on credit ala Eastern Motors?
Steve Hsu's cousin Richard Chang was almost the first Jeremy Lin. 6"7 forward at Cal and maybe still the only full Asian-American to get multiple D1 scholarship offers.
Is that really his cousin?
Apparently he works at Costco now in Taiwan.
"Lin was the only California HS player in history not to get a D1 offer."
Jeez mom, why didn't you raise me in Ca.?
"So, maybe half-breed Mongols with some white blood mated with some North Chinese. North Chinese are bigger than Southern Chinese."
It's nutrition. Young guys in Shanghai are much bigger than young guys in Beijing these days because they are wealthier on average - walk past a local high school and you see plenty of kids well over six foot, go to the financial district and you see a ton of guys who are the same because they've all been well-fed from birth.
I know a lot of ABC's in their 20's working in China, and in all honesty, guys with Lin's height and build really aren't that unusual. They're not the average of course (they wouldn't be the average for any nation on the planet), but I know at least several guys who were born and raised in New York or California and are of purely Chinese descent who would match Lin's size.
Sailer is an interesting and trenchant source of analysis, but I think there is tendency amongst many of his readers to single-mindedly impute all things to race and HBD alone. There are other factors and variables in play though.
""Slight Caucasoid features" could have come from anywhere, including South Asia or Iran or the Mideast."
Or his imagination.
Truth, tell the truth - you bought your car at Eastern Motors, right?
"It's nutrition. Young guys in Shanghai are much bigger than young guys in Beijing these days because they are wealthier on average - walk past a local high school and you see plenty of kids well over six foot, go to the financial district and you see a ton of guys who are the same because they've all been well-fed from birth."
But Shanghai isn't really southern China.
Hsu wrote about his cousin and Jeremy Lin back in 2010.
http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2010/09/they-got-some-game.html
"My cousin Richard Chang had a shot at it 20 years ago. A 6 foot 7 forward, he was heavily recruited out of Edison high school in Los Angeles, and played at Cal. If it weren't for a knee injury the summer after a freshman season where he saw a lot of playing time, I think he could have made the NBA. A torn ACL back then was a big deal -- he has a scar the length of his lower leg from the surgery. Richard was cut by the Warriors before the beginning of the season (could still happen to Lin), back in the late 80s. When I was a grad student at Berkeley I overlapped with Richard on campus, and undergraduates were always amazed to learn he was my cousin. "RICHARD CHANG is your cousin?!?" they'd ask. I learned a lot about big time sports culture and the sense of entitlement that athletes have. When I visited him in Huntington Beach the ushers would let us into the local movie theaters for free!"
http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2010/09/they-got-some-game.html
I haven't heard this much discussion of an athlete's breeding since Jimmy the Greek left us.
I'm not sure how long the edict has been going, but with a "one child" policy, how can there be any cousins?
I'm not sure how long the edict has been going, but with a "one child" policy, how can there be any cousins?
I think they're Taiwanese.
Baby, the rain must fall
"I haven't heard this much discussion of an athlete's breeding since Jimmy the Greek left us."
I just hope the secret to his success isn't dog meat.
"But Shanghai isn't really southern China."
Shanghai is unmistakeably and beyond doubt a part of southern China - all of Zhejiang province and the southern part of Jiangsu province are considered southern Chinese.
This talk about Lin's pedigree is asinine and absurd speculation - some very insecure individuals who frequent this site cannot endure the mere thought of a large male Eastern Asian who outclasses them both intellectually and physically.
"Shanghai is unmistakeably and beyond doubt a part of southern China - all of Zhejiang province and the southern part of Jiangsu province are considered southern Chinese."
Shanghai is right in the middle of China. It's kinda like Southern Illinois. Half south, half north. It's not the Deep South.
The truly small people in China are in the deep southern regions.
The situation with the Knicks was an amazing coincidence that fit his needs perfectly -- the team had run out of viable point guards because of injuries, was on a losing streak and ready to try anything, and had a coach with an offensive system that needed an aggressive, ball-dominating point guard. It was the perfect match.
Completely agree, In fact that was exactly what I was going to post when I decided to read the comments first. It was a perfect storm for Lin, if he had stayed in Golden State he would have been riding the pine for the rest of his career, averaging 4 points a a game. In fact that would have been his fate with a lot of teams in the NBA, because he would never have been given a chance to play, because most teams wouldn't have been as injury depleted as the Knicks, nor have had a coach like D'Antoni who is less suspectble to NBA conventional wisdom. Regarding the poster who cites Spike Lee's Tweets and other's as proof that they are not downplaying Lin, of course Lee isn't, Lin is winning games for his beloved Knicks. A lot of those tweets come from celebrities who are Knicks fans and the Knicks despite their monster payroll of 'Melo and Stoudemire were stuck in neutral until Lin came along and saved their shortened season.
Derek Fisher was a very young kid when the peach-basket hoop was invented. You can actually see him in the background of some of the old pictures.
--- Scales Fall
Personally I really enjoyed it when Fish tried his hand at acting in the "Airplane" film (it almost made up for the time he stupidly tried to call time-out in the NCAA championship game)
They just lost the Super Bowl. If Lin lost his first 4 starts, but played well in them, he wouldn't be getting nearly the attention he's been getting. People like to focus on winners
By that logic, people should ignore Lin until he wins the NBA Championship. Only then will he be a "winner" as you define it.
Bynum is pretty much acknowledged by everyone to be the best center in the league behind Dwight Howard.
I count as part of everyone, and I don't agree that he's the second best center in the NBA. Stoudemire is better, for instance.
It's true that there aren't that many good centers these days, but he's still way better than Olowakandi and Benjamin ever were.
It's true that there is a shortage of really good centers, but it's also true that to the extent Bynum is a good center, he's not a good center in the mold of Wilt, Kareem, or Shaq. That is, he's not a big scorer.
I agree with the two other posters, Fenris and Daniel, that Lin’s game reminds one of Gary Payton. I saw Payton play when he was the end of his career with Boston, and it was uncanny watching his subtle moves, great ball movement, and amazing body control. Payton was 33 or so at the time and only playing 15 to 20 minutes a game but he was still a very impressive player with very high basketball intelligence. Lin’s jump shot, with its high arc, also reminds me a little bit of John Stockton’s jump shot.
The 64 million dollar question is what will happen to Lin and the Knicks when they two Knick stars (Anthony and Stoudemire) return from injuries next week.
Anthony is considered one of the premier players in the league and the Knicks just outbid three other teams and spent a fortune to get him.
So far it hasn’t worked out that well for the Knicks as the team’s chemistry seems to be off, at least until Anthony got hurt and Lin started to play.
There is only one ball and Anthony and Lin play the same position don’t they?
Any thoughts about what will happen?
The New York papers are already speculating about it. See the following article: No telling how Carmelo Anthony will impact Linsanity when All-Star ...
www.nydailynews.com/.../telling-carmelo-anthony-change-linsanity-...
There is only one ball and Anthony and Lin play the same position don’t they?
No they don't. Anthony is a SF and Lin is a PG. They will have adapt their games a bit because both can be somewhat ball dominating but there is no theoretical reason why they shouldn't be able to complement each other.
Stoudemire and Lin should be a perfect pick and roll match, it should be a blast to watch them together. Carmelo tends to post people up rather than doing the pick and roll, so not as natural a match. But Carmelo played very well on an Olympic team stuffed with stars so he should have no problem working in.
Anthony, Stoudemire, Lin, Tyson Chandler, and pretty much anybody else...sounds like a pretty good team to me!
I count as part of everyone, and I don't agree that he's the second best center in the NBA. Stoudemire is better, for instance.
He's not a center.
Anthony is considered one of the premier players in the league and the Knicks just outbid three other teams and spent a fortune to get him.
A lot of people consider Anthony the *worst* player in the NBA.
"By that logic, people should ignore Lin until he wins the NBA Championship. Only then will he be a "winner" as you define it."
No, I didn't say someone isn't a winner until they win a national championship. A winner is someone who wins, period. All Jeremy Lin has done in his first 5 starts is win. The football analogy at this point of the NBA season might be Tim Tebow, though Lin is a much more complete point guard than Tebow is a QB.
"Listening to sports Radio if you someone with a black accent call in its virtually guarenteed they will downplay his success, same thing for the pundits."
Steve, you really should choose the yahoo haters that comment on your blog.
Spike Lee is another black Knicks fan who is open in his admiration of the kid.
I don't know how many of youse are actually from NY, but part of the "Linsanity" arises from the fact that the Knicks have a great past, but for many years have been a horribly managed team. The management has turned a once-great franchise into a bunch of dreary losers. They take their fans for granted because of the glory years of the past.
Lin is a breath of fresh air. I don't know if he's a flash in the pan but he's given the Knicks a huge psychological boost. Like all athletes, his career depends not just on talent but physical and mental durability. He's got the mental side down pat. The physical side? Who knows? It's in the lap of the basketball gods.
It's possible that Lin's reported increase in stength (resulting from intensive workouts prior to the season) has "unlocked" the hidden value in his less impressive former game. In basketball as in soccer, the ability to hold yourself very exactly in intricate split second ballerina positions while executing physical maneuvers is often the difference separating better from worse athletes (30 minutes of strength training for about 10 days is equivalent in value to about 2 years of knocking the soccer ball around wishing you had skills). Some of the video of Lin finishing around the basket suggests the idea here. An increase in strength also would help Lin to execute his subtle pause and slash moves, where both stopping motion and accelerating in a different direction become more exact with greater strength. If only we could see all the small deficits in the multi-factor models of our lives that separate our unhappy bench riding mediocrity from glorious stardom! At first linsanity seemed like a mass delusion based on underappreciation of the player stamina factor, with Lin enjoying a stamina advantage relative to opposing players who have played the full season, but Lin's highlight reels show flashes of skill similar to some of the best penetrating guards in the game.
It's worth pointing out as well how crucial a penetrating point guard is. It's not super complicated, basketball being a sort of human checkers, but the guard in the paint draws help from the 4 or 5 position defenders and/or from the perimeter defenders, leaving someone open under the basket or someone available for the kickout. If the guard shoots, it's a high percentage shot from close range. Penetration = high shooting percentage. What's less obvious is that most of the game outcome turns on whether one impact guy can destabilize the defense. The Kansas Jayhawks outcomes, as an example, basically turn on whether an opposing team can effectively stop Tyshawn Taylor from penetrating. If the silky Taylor gets in the lane, then the perimeter shooters, who are mediocre at making their own shot, come into the game, and the twin towers get a lot of easy points. If Taylor is defended well, the offense looks average. Knick outcomes above and below expectations may fluctuate depending on the opposing point guard's quickness and defense, at least until Knick outcomes in particular matchups with Lin in the lineup have been better established.
There is a precedent for a Harvard guard playing pro ball, incidentally. Allison Feaster shot the lights out for the lowest seed Crimson against the #1 seeded Stanford cardinal in the women's tournament one season, knocking them out, then went on to a WNBA career that included starting on a team in the finals and a later career in France. It wasn't necessarily race relations that drove the decision for French citizenship. It might have been the foie gras.
Interesting blog post from 2 years ago before the 2010 NBA draft from a "Moneyball" style b-ball statistician that predicted Lin might do pretty well:
http://hoopsanalyst.com/blog/?p=487
There's an interesting story about the guy who wrote that blog post in the WSJ:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204880404577225562995441868.html
He's a FedEx Ground delivery-truck driver. He's an amateur stats hobbyist and devotee of Bill James, whom you've blogged about. All of his stats analysis is just a hobby, nothing professional.
Post a Comment