Some Linsanity To Cure Your February Doldrums

February has to be the dumbest month in the whole calendar year. 28 days, leap years (and this year is a leap year for the record)…seriously, where the hell does February get off having at least 1 but usually 2 less days than any other month? Also, if you’re living in a Mid-Atlantic state (like Maryland), the weather is garbage. There is just as much a possibility for snow as there is for it to be sunny and 70, but what you’re probably going to get is temps in the mid-40’s and rain. Cripes…wake me up when March is here. But let’s move on to the story de jour that Sportscenter is bludgeoning to death: Jeremy Lin.

Leave it to ESPN to turn a great story into something I can’t stand looking at or hearing about, but it’s undeniable that Lin is a great story. The guy was lightly recruited, played his college ball at Harvard, went undrafted, and has been cut by NBA teams multiple times in his 2-plus years since finishing his college career and spent time in the D-league…and he’s Taiwanese-American, AND he’s doing it all in the Mecca of all basketball to boot! It’s pretty incredible stuff. And it’s not just New York fans though…checkout the Toronto crowd’s reaction to him hitting the game-winner last night.

The reason Lin’s story is so compelling is because it basically follows the script of any sports movie (and even “bad” sports movies are usually pretty good): a guy or a team who has been overlooked because they’re too small/too slow/not skilled enough/a skin color we’re not used to comes from obscurity to make good. We all like rooting for the underdog deep down. We’re used to watching professional athletes with a sense of entitlement who have had nobody do anything but tell them how great they are from the time they’re in junior high. It’s refreshing to see someone succeed through hard work and perseverance against all odds. That’s basically the American Dream in a nutshell, isn’t it?

I’m hard-pressed to think of someone as unknown as Lin reaching his level of success right off the bat. Someone on TV mentioned Kurt Warner as being comparable to Lin in terms of coming from anonymity to immediate success, but aside from that it’s hard to come up with an example like it. Lin’s game does have flaws. He always wants to go right, and even if he does go left initially he will usually use a spin or some other move to get back to his dominant hand. He’s not a ballstopper or a black hole on offense, but he’s definitely more of a shoot 1st point guard who has the ability to pass than the other way around. He turns the ball over a little too much. He has somewhat of a hitch in his jumpshot that looks funny at times, but all of that almost seems to just further endear him to the fans at Madison Square Garden, as if to say, “Yeah, he doesn’t look like everyone else, he can only go right, and his jumper isn’t the prettiest thing in the world, but he’s ours.” Knicks fans seem to love that kind of stuff…which is why I always thought it was funny that they seemed so desperate to win the LeBron sweepstakes or land Melo the year after. Superstars just don’t look right in a Knicks jersey. Give them John Starks, fresh off the street from bagging groceries to D-up MJ. That’s what they want. So, Jeremy Lin and the foibles in his game should feel right at home playing at the garden. Oh, and did I mention his teammates seem to love him and have rallied around him as well?

Linsanity will probably face stiffer tests than D-Fish prior to season's end.

It’s likely that Lin will eventually level-out to being consistently good rather than spectacular on a nightly basis at some point. Defenses will begin to figure out the best ways to attack him, and he will have the opportunity to play against better defensive point guards than Derek Fisher, Ricky Rubio, and Jose Calderon as well. In his 5 starts, Lin is averaging 27 points and almost 9 assists per game though, and the Knicks have won 6 in a row overall…hard to argue too much with results like that. Even if by season’s end his averages dipped to, let’s say, 18 and 7 (and the Knicks continue winning), that would place him with some of the better point guards in the league. Either way, he doesn’t just seem like some flash in the pan. My main question is this: since he appears to be legitimately good, what the hell were coaches looking at when this guy couldn’t get on the court before? Even in Golden State where Curry and Ellis are going to get the bulk of the run, how can this guy barely crack the lineup? What’s Houston’s excuse? Even the Knicks, who had struggled with their point guard play all year, had this guy on their bench for 20-some games before playing him. You’re telling me he wasn’t killing Tony Douglas and Mike Bibby in practice every day? Makes you wonder sometimes…but for now, let’s all just sit back and enjoy. Linsanity is in full effect.