Jeremy Lin: Count Me In

By Roy Exum · Wednesday, February 22, 2012

I make no secret of the fact I have a great distain for the NBA. Despite the superb athleticism constantly on display, I've not watched five games in my entire life and this comes from a guy who adores college basketball and watches games almost every night. My rub is with the NBA's culture -- it runs counter to everything I believe -- and while I have no basis of fact, I'm one who thinks the entire league might fold in just two weeks if its participants were subjected to the same drug testing major companies now require prospective employees.

So why is it I'm suddenly swept up in the "Lin-sanity" that has captivated America with the emergence of the spectacular Jeremy Lin of the New York Knicks? Perhaps radio voice Alex Ping described it best when he told USA Today sportswriter Mike Lopresti he had broken the whole thing down into five words beginning with H: "Harvard, hope, humility, happiness and heading forward."

Wow! Those are five words I have never associated with the NBA but just look at the Knicks' 104-97 victory over the Mavericks on Sunday; the first player in history to play in the NBA from Chinese-Taiwanese descent scored 28 points, had a career-high 14 assists and five steals. Moreover, in a game being increasingly ruined by multi-millionaire prima donnas, he played the entire second half in such a relentless way he's captured millions of hearts other than mine.

No announcer mentioned it but during the game at Madison Square Garden, Lin wore a plastic wristband that read, "In Jesus Name I Play," and he backed up his devout faith in an even better way. An unfortunate headline on ESPN last week read, "A Chink In The Armor," and the guy who wrote it was immediately fired, the racial overtones far outweighing the story itself.

A mournful apology immediately came from ousted editor, Anthony Federico, who swears it was written in all innocence and that he deeply laments the double meaning, but far better was Lin's reaction to the regretful firestorm -- he shrugged the whole thing off. "Have to learn to forgive, and I don't even think that was intentional," the star guard told reporters. "Or hopefully not."

In case you've come in late, the Harvard-educated Lin (ecomonics) got fired twice from two NBA teams in just December alone when he, a Developmental League player, didn't pan out. The Knicks latched onto Jeremy in January and -- kaa-boom -- this February has rivaled anything ever before seen in the 44-year history of Madison Square Garden.

Get this: in just the last two weeks he has over 350,000 followers on Twitter and more than that on Facebook. Last Wednesday two guys named Bill Clinton and Albert Gore showed up to watch the win over Sacramento and the huge sports juggernaut, Nike, hopes to come out with a special shoe -- hello -- by the end of the week.

Going into Monday night's game against New Jersey, Jeremy was averaging 14.3 points per game, not just in his rookie year but in his rookie month! He scored 28 against New Orleans on Friday and Sunday's showcase left team coach Mike D'Antoni muttering, "What you can't teach is what he has inside ... his heart ... and he has it."

Lin, who was sleeping on the sofa at his brother's co-op just two weeks ago, has been feverishly invited to "assist" in the NBA's commercial-filled Slam-Dunk competition this weekend in Orlando and last week late-night TV's David Letterman, in reciting the "Top Ten Worst Jeremy Lin puns," rattled off as No. 5: "Lin-terest-bearing Lin-vestment grade financial Lin-strument."

Further, he's the cover-boy on this week's Sports Illustrated and every sports venue on the Internet has ads for "Lin-sanity" tee-shirts available. The national media is as frenzied as I can ever recall over this modest, humble, gentle, kind Christian man who -- in all candor -- is everything the NBA never was to me.

Earlier this year the NBA was stilled by a strike -- the subject of unbridled greed unable to be settled between the players and owners -- and not one person I talk with missed the NBA at all. As a matter of fact, the sports bars where I pause for refreshment found the fact that play was being resumed on Christmas Day as a holiday laugher and blamed the Grinch himself.

So how is it that in a lightning stroke of less than a month, a quiet and meek (off the court) Jeremy Lin has emerged to be the greatest thing in recent NBA memory. It all comes down to five words beginning in H: "Harvard, hope, humility, happiness and heading forward."

My gracious, I just love it and, if it keeps on much longer, I just might watch him in a NBA game myself.

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