What strikes me about the Jeremy Lin Comet Blast isn't that he looks so very different from every other NBA headliner.
He does look different, but that's not it, at least for me, as an Asian-American observing and commenting the sports world.
No, the heart of my appreciation for Lin is that he looks perfectly natural doing what he's doing for the New York Knicks.
He looks as if he should be doing this, on the big stage.
If and when we can siphon out the politics, the prejudices, the agendas and the money, sports competition is pure, which is why we love it. And what Lin is doing is the purest form of all that.
Players play. The best ones win, whoever they are. Lin is winning.
It's special, it's dramatic, it's storybook, it's a tale for the ages, absolutely, and it has so far carried on through seven games. It was elevated yet one more level by Tuesday night's game-winner in Toronto.
But when I watched Lin pull up over Jose Calderon and bury that 3-pointer, I didn't instantly think of his Taiwanese heritage or his ecstatic fan base of all races and creeds.
I thought: This is what Derrick Rose does; this is what Larry Bird used to do; this is what Jeremy Lin is now doing and continued to do Wednesday night when he distributed 13 assists in a 100-85 victory over Sacramento.
And I thought: The greatness of this is the incidentalness of his race on some levels.
Race didn't matter -- not for Lin, not for Calderon (who is Spanish), not for Lin's teammate Landry Fields.
The purity of the play is what mattered. How powerful is that?
Yes, Lin is extraordinary, and so is Kevin Durant for his race and all races, Albert Pujols for his race and all races and Hope Solo for her race and for all races.
Lin's race is not incidental beyond the basketball floor, I know. We all see and react to things through our own prisms, whether we're senators, janitors, pro boxers or sports writers.
You ask the guys I grew up playing basketball with -- or the thousands of Asians I see every night at the Golden State Warriors' Oracle Arena -- and yeah, the racial component is assuredly not incidental.
But Lin's reactions, and his teammates' reactions, and, really, the fans' reactions aren't precisely about his race.
He does look different, but that's not it, at least for me, as an Asian-American observing and commenting the sports world.
No, the heart of my appreciation for Lin is that he looks perfectly natural doing what he's doing for the New York Knicks.
He looks as if he should be doing this, on the big stage.
If and when we can siphon out the politics, the prejudices, the agendas and the money, sports competition is pure, which is why we love it. And what Lin is doing is the purest form of all that.
Players play. The best ones win, whoever they are. Lin is winning.
It's special, it's dramatic, it's storybook, it's a tale for the ages, absolutely, and it has so far carried on through seven games. It was elevated yet one more level by Tuesday night's game-winner in Toronto.
But when I watched Lin pull up over Jose Calderon and bury that 3-pointer, I didn't instantly think of his Taiwanese heritage or his ecstatic fan base of all races and creeds.
I thought: This is what Derrick Rose does; this is what Larry Bird used to do; this is what Jeremy Lin is now doing and continued to do Wednesday night when he distributed 13 assists in a 100-85 victory over Sacramento.
And I thought: The greatness of this is the incidentalness of his race on some levels.
Race didn't matter -- not for Lin, not for Calderon (who is Spanish), not for Lin's teammate Landry Fields.
The purity of the play is what mattered. How powerful is that?
Yes, Lin is extraordinary, and so is Kevin Durant for his race and all races, Albert Pujols for his race and all races and Hope Solo for her race and for all races.
Lin's race is not incidental beyond the basketball floor, I know. We all see and react to things through our own prisms, whether we're senators, janitors, pro boxers or sports writers.
You ask the guys I grew up playing basketball with -- or the thousands of Asians I see every night at the Golden State Warriors' Oracle Arena -- and yeah, the racial component is assuredly not incidental.
But Lin's reactions, and his teammates' reactions, and, really, the fans' reactions aren't precisely about his race.
They're about him as an incomparable underdog, the way Tim Lincecum
was an underdog, and anybody who isn't a star is an underdog until he's a
star.
And then he's a role model.
It's not the narrowness of Lin's background, it's the universality of the achievement.
Everybody connects to Jeremy Lin in some way _ every single person who was ruled out, released, rerouted and given up on, and just needs that one true opportunity.
It's the same way Tim Tebow's story has affected so many people, though Lin's saga is different in several facets.
Yes, both have overcome some athletic stereotypes, both are deeply spiritual, and both have understandably touched nerves in the American sports psyche.
But Lin is an underdog of geometrically greater proportions -- Tebow was an huge recruit out of high school, a Heisman Trophy winner at Florida and a first-round pick.
Lin was an Ivy League player who went undrafted in 2010 and was cut twice, the first time by his hometown Warriors.
By the way, a quick diversion: We can all understand that the Warriors missed on Lin in a titanic way, especially because co-owner Joe Lacob was and might remain Lin's biggest fan and now is watching Lin take over New York.
But this Lin explosion was not fated to happen with the Warriors, who released him on the first day of training camp to make a failed free-agent run at the Clippers' DeAndre Jordan.
First, the Warriors have Monta Ellis and Stephen Curry and aren't about to move either aside for another ball-dominant guard. If Lin was still on this team, he would be sitting on the bench.
And also, the franchise never got a chance to see what Lin could do because last season's coach, Keith Smart, chose to play veteran Acie Law in whatever minutes were available behind Ellis and Curry.
The Warriors didn't know what they had in Lin, but nobody in the league knew until the Knicks had no other choice but to try Lin with the ball in his hands.
I can't rebuke the Warriors for not seeing what Lin could do, because I certainly didn't see it myself.
I would have some reasons to look closely for signs -- I loved basketball first and foremost when I was a kid, as so many Asians have loved and do love basketball.
And then he's a role model.
It's not the narrowness of Lin's background, it's the universality of the achievement.
Everybody connects to Jeremy Lin in some way _ every single person who was ruled out, released, rerouted and given up on, and just needs that one true opportunity.
It's the same way Tim Tebow's story has affected so many people, though Lin's saga is different in several facets.
Yes, both have overcome some athletic stereotypes, both are deeply spiritual, and both have understandably touched nerves in the American sports psyche.
But Lin is an underdog of geometrically greater proportions -- Tebow was an huge recruit out of high school, a Heisman Trophy winner at Florida and a first-round pick.
Lin was an Ivy League player who went undrafted in 2010 and was cut twice, the first time by his hometown Warriors.
By the way, a quick diversion: We can all understand that the Warriors missed on Lin in a titanic way, especially because co-owner Joe Lacob was and might remain Lin's biggest fan and now is watching Lin take over New York.
But this Lin explosion was not fated to happen with the Warriors, who released him on the first day of training camp to make a failed free-agent run at the Clippers' DeAndre Jordan.
First, the Warriors have Monta Ellis and Stephen Curry and aren't about to move either aside for another ball-dominant guard. If Lin was still on this team, he would be sitting on the bench.
And also, the franchise never got a chance to see what Lin could do because last season's coach, Keith Smart, chose to play veteran Acie Law in whatever minutes were available behind Ellis and Curry.
The Warriors didn't know what they had in Lin, but nobody in the league knew until the Knicks had no other choice but to try Lin with the ball in his hands.
I can't rebuke the Warriors for not seeing what Lin could do, because I certainly didn't see it myself.
I would have some reasons to look closely for signs -- I loved basketball first and foremost when I was a kid, as so many Asians have loved and do love basketball.
I wouldn't imagine that I'm prejudiced against Asian-Americans making it in the NBA.
(And yes, I've always striven to be measured by what I do, not limited because of what I look like or by the scarcity of people who look like me in sportswriting.)
And I didn't see Lin as an important player. Maybe I saw Lin as a backup, but I sure didn't see anything like this.
I was wrong, the Warriors were wrong, the Houston Rockets were wrong for releasing Lin quickly after picking him up.
Being proven wrong is part of the purity, too. This is not abstract. This is not decided by unspoken prejudices or fawning boosterism.
This is about competition -- nothing matters except the journey and the outcome. Sometimes glory comes to the most unlikely point guards. Isn't it wonderful when that happens?
source
(And yes, I've always striven to be measured by what I do, not limited because of what I look like or by the scarcity of people who look like me in sportswriting.)
And I didn't see Lin as an important player. Maybe I saw Lin as a backup, but I sure didn't see anything like this.
I was wrong, the Warriors were wrong, the Houston Rockets were wrong for releasing Lin quickly after picking him up.
Being proven wrong is part of the purity, too. This is not abstract. This is not decided by unspoken prejudices or fawning boosterism.
This is about competition -- nothing matters except the journey and the outcome. Sometimes glory comes to the most unlikely point guards. Isn't it wonderful when that happens?
source
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