Jeremy Lin

by Ted Kluck

  One of Lin’s biggest influences has been a book called Humility by pastor and author C. J. Mahaney. “Humility,” Mahaney writes, “is honestly assessing ourselves in light of God’s holiness, and our sinfulness.” That is to say, it’s more than the tried and true “deflecting praise in the interview room” (though this is important in its own way), it’s more than a Bible verse scribbled on a uniform, and it’s more than a cursory point at the sky after a touchdown or a basket. It’s a true, honest, confessional state of the heart.

  “When you’re called to be a Christian,” said Lin in a 2010 interview with Timothy Dalrymple, “you’re automatically called to be different from everyone else.” Lin’s story and background, certainly, make him different from the rest of the NBA. But so do his conduct and his humility. “If we really understand the gospel,” Lin said, “we will be humble. We should be humble, and understand that everything that is good comes from God.”

  It’s also the understanding that everything that comes from God is good—and this includes difficult stints in the NBDL as much as it includes starring for the Knicks. It has all been a part of God’s plan for Jeremy Lin. The inspiration for us, as fans, may well be in this part of the Lin narrative—the idea that the “downs” are as important as the “ups.” We all want to think that God will one day turn us into Kurt Warner or Tim Tebow, but the fact remains that it’s the gospel of Jesus Christ that redeems those men from their sins and grants eternal life, and it is their faith in that gospel that is the most compelling thing about them. While winning titles, giving interviews, and having evangelicals clawing all over themselves to read your book is a temporary thrill, it pales in light of eternity.

  “The other reason that athletic success can be humbling is because, even after you win a state championship, it’s not as fulfilling as you had thought it would be,” Lin says in the same interview. “That’s humbling, too, and it says something about the way we chase after materialistic and worldly things.”

  Lin’s tribute to his parents in this interview also has application for us, as fans and parents. In this clip he’s speaking from his dorm room at Harvard, wearing a crimson Harvard sweatshirt, seated in front of a computer monitor with what appears to be two gaming controllers sitting atop it. He looks incredibly young. He is, in the clip, the epitome of wide-eyed. (Letting reporters into your dorm room is something you do before you’re actually famous, or before you really think it can happen.)

  “When we talk about basketball, they [Lin’s parents] don’t necessarily talk, always, about whether we won or how many points I scored,” Lin said. “I think they do a great job of teaching me about playing in a godly manner. There will be times when I have a great individual performance but lose my temper . . . and that’s what they’ll talk to me about. I just think that the way they see the game and the way they judge my behavior on the court is more valuable to me than anything else they could do.”

  8

  Jeremy Lin Then and Now

  vs. John Wall, NBA Summer League; vs. Kobe Bryant, February 10, 2012

  So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

  —1 Corinthians 10:31

  I’ve always struggled with this verse in the context of sports. What does it mean to do everything for the glory of God when in sports if I do something well, I get the glory? And what’s more, I really like the glory? Most of us (myself included), as athletes, aren’t well enough acquainted with actual glory for it to even be an issue, but we can easily ask the question of our own careers—whether it’s writing, teaching, sales, medicine, or ministry.

  For me, maybe the most interesting piece of Lin film in circulation is a tape of his NBA Summer League showdown with the number one overall draft pick, John Wall.

  Last year I logged more minutes watching Summer League action on NBA.com than I logged during the entirety of the NBA playoffs. NBA Summer League games may be the one and only truly “free” product available anywhere in the universe, as it comes without all of the junk that usually accompanies an NBA telecast including, but not limited to commercials, showboating, JumboTrons, hip-hop, and Charles Barkley. It’s basketball for people who just like watching basketball.

  The games are streamed live on the website, or sometimes they’re archived . . . but honestly, what difference does it make? The games themselves also don’t “matter” in the traditional sense, but then again, neither does most of the NBA regular season (see: the Los Angeles Clippers circa most of their life as a franchise). You could argue that they matter more because rookies are fighting for a roster spot and probably play harder than they might otherwise.

  There is one camera angle and little to no play-by-play or color commentary. The games happen in a gym, not an arena. There are no banal halftime or postgame interviews in which a tall athlete stands next to a short reporter and says things like “We just really came together as a team” or “We did what we had to do” or “It is what it is.” This is refreshing. During time-outs there’s no music, no dancing girls, and no advertising. You see what the camera sees, which is usually a kid mopping the floor, the scoreboard, or somebody shooting free throws. There are no crowd shots of Spike Lee or Jack Nicholson or the woman from Desperate Housewives who was married to the guy from the Spurs.

  In the Lin/Wall tape, the teams are playing in what looks like a practice gym in Las Vegas in front of a small crowd. Shoe squeaks are the loudest sounds on the tape. Lin steals a pass in front of Wall and then streaks down the court for a dunk.

  “He’s gonna be an NBA crowd favorite,” says a commentator, prophetically.

  Lin contests John Wall’s shots, forcing misses defensively. He was fresh off leading Harvard to their best season in school history, winning the Cousy Award given to the nation’s best point guard, but then going undrafted in the NBA’s annual televised celebration of garish purple suits and crying mothers.

  He jukes Wall and drives confidently to the hoop for a layup. The video shows what Lin has shown in his first few Knick games—a fearlessness and lack of regard for the hype of the players around him.

  “You can tell he’s athletic, and he has a little bit of swagger,” says the commentator. Lin pops a mid-range jumper for his tenth point off the bench. A few possessions later he pump-fakes Wall, steps to his right, and knocks down a three-ball. Wall was the SEC Player of the Year as a freshman, the Yahoo Sports National Player of the Year, and a consensus All-American. Yet on the tape he seems more tentative and less confident than the undrafted Lin.

  Lin crosses Wall over, misses a floater, and then grabs his own rebound, ending up tied up with Wall.

  “If that would have dropped, these fans would have gone crazy,” says the talking head. “They wanna see Lin slay the monster!”

  “Wall’s ego doesn’t like you cheering for the opponent,” he says.

  This is the performance, people say, that won Lin an NBA contract.

  The performance that turned Lin into a household name may well have been the 38 he dropped on the Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers were represented, in this case, by the NBA’s uber villain, Kobe Bryant.

  “Who is this kid?” Bryant said before the game, feigning ignorance regarding Lin. “I don’t really know what you guys are talking about. What’s the big deal?” This is the Bryant of designer clothes, sunglasses in buildings, out-of-court settlements, and a pervasive “I’ve been here and done this before” attitude.

  “There’s too much attention coming my way,” Lin says in a pregame interview. “What’s happening right now is a lot bigger than just one person. That’s what I wish we’d start to talk about more.” The thing that strikes me, about these early interviews, is how young Lin looks. He looks like a kid. And he kind of sounds like one. He hasn’t yet perfected the mumbly, detached, NBA affectation of being completely annoyed with and disinterested in the media.

  In the first half he hits runners in the paint, he knocks down open jumpers, and he screams at the crowd wit
h his mouth open. They scream back. This is exactly how you dream it if you’re the kind of person who dreams of such things (I am).

  In the second quarter he spins around Derek Fisher like Derek Fisher is an inanimate object for his 18th point. “He’s really enjoying himself,” says Hubie Brown. No kidding.

  “He plays like Steve Nash and John Stockton,” says Magic Johnson at halftime. “This guy is for real . . . for real. The Lakers should be double teaming him on every pick-and-roll to contain him.” That comment will come back to haunt Lin later, as teams will begin to do exactly that.

  His 29th point comes on a jump shot from the corner in the fourth, after which the Lakers take a time-out and Lin runs to the bench, chest-bumping with teammates. There are black guys in the crowd wearing homemade Jeremy Lin masks over their faces. Surreal doesn’t begin to describe it. A few minutes later he sticks a sick two-pointer in the face of a confused-looking Pau Gasol. Shortly thereafter, a three-ball—on which nobody rotates out to cover him, opting instead to just stand there and wait for him to cool off—sends the crowd into a frenzy and the Lakers into another time-out.

  Later, Lin steals and dishes to Shumpert in a fourth quarter that isn’t even close. Kobe was no slouch, scoring 31 in a losing effort, but the night belonged to Lin, who finished with 38.

  “It’s been great for basketball and New York,” says Brown.

  Starting with Kobe’s disrespect (intended or unintended), the table was set for this kind of show, at home, and this kind of story. Lin and the Knicks responded.

  “This is it right here,” Lin says after the game. “I’m just thankful to God. This is my dream playing out.” Not many people get to actually live their dreams the way they’ve dreamed them. It’s a weighty responsibility.

  Lin seems genuinely disarmed when a reporter asks if “Kobe knows who you are now?” He’s wearing a Knicks hoodie . . . hair still wet from the shower. He pauses for a minute to consider his answer.

  “He helped me up off the floor one time today . . . so maybe he knows who I am.”

  9

  The NBA All-Star Weekend Is an Overproduced Gong Show

  I’m surprised people are still talking about [makes air quotes] Linsanity.

  —Jeremy Lin, at an All-Star Weekend press conference

  “Nothing says NBA basketball like Nicki Minaj and a bunch of shirtless dancers in glitter pants,” I tell my wife as we watch the pregame “introductions” of both All-Star squads. As Minaj sings, a seizure-inducing pastiche of neon lights, fake smoke, and awkwardly gyrating players fills the screen. The players emerge from some sort of an under-stage area, bathed in backlight, as the tinny hip-hop music plays in the background. Lebron James grins from ear to ear as he leads his team out of the tunnel. The knock on Lebron James is that while he’s the most long, athletic, talented player in the league, he lacks a killer instinct. He seems relatively happy to make his hundreds of millions, smile, lead the league in scoring, be semi-boring, and not win titles. The knock on Kobe Bryant is the opposite—he’s so competitive and killer that he lacks a normal, winsome, marketable personality. It remains to be seen where Lin will fall on this spectrum. And it also remains to be seen whether Lin will have the Madison Avenue staying power necessary to transcend basketball, as Kobe and Lebron have both failed (Kobe more than Lebron) to do.

  Minaj’s song seems to last forever. Somewhere Red Auerbach is turning over in his grave as the whole thing seems like one of MTV’s tacky award shows. Indeed, All-Star Weekend is usually marked by an unsavory news story containing at least one but sometimes all of the following: a B-grade hip-hop star, an exotic dancer, drugs, guns, and a Kardashian.

  On Friday Lin participates in the Rising Stars All-Star Game as a late addition. The format of the game is that each of TNT’s two studio analysts (if you’ve watched the program you know that I use the word analyst loosely), Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley, drafted rookie and first-year players to populate their respective rosters. Lin is one of what seems like a half-dozen point guards on the Team Shaq roster. He starts the game with two other point guards—the Timberwolves Ricky Rubio and the Pistons Brandon Knight.

  There are stylistic similarities between Rubio and Lin—both seem to joyfully attack the game of basketball. They both seem refreshingly out of place in an NBA era marked by comic-book physiques and prison tats. Rubio—bearded and constantly sporting an impish grin—may be taking it to a new level in the joy department. He reminds you of the guy who lived on your dorm floor in college who was a little disheveled but always up for a good time. Alley-oops and behind-the-back passes are plentiful. Rubio is a natural showman, and it’s hard to root against him.

  Lin throws up an early alley-oop to Clipper star Blake Griffin, and then sits down almost immediately. There seems to be a tacit understanding that Lin will spend most of his All-Star experience resting his legs. The All-Star break has also provided ample time for people inside and outside of basketball to weigh in on Lin’s long-term viability as a prospect.

  One of the only basketball columnists I read consistently is Charley Rosen, whose career has taken him from the classroom (an English professor) through the bowels of minor league basketball (CBA head-coaching stints) to the NBA (a former Phil Jackson assistant) and now into journalism. He’s an interesting character, but also an astute judge of talent:

  “Overall, Lin’s performances in the four games he has started—against the Lakers, Wizards, Jazz, and Nets—have been inspirational,” Rosen writes on HoopsHype.com. In so doing, he has rescued both the Knicks season and D’Antoni’s job (for the time being).

  “However, just as the league has caught up with Rubio (by muscling him and forcing him to shoot under pressure), adjustments will undoubtedly be made to counter Lin. His right hand will be overplayed, he’ll have to prove that he’s a consistent long-range shooter, bigs will position themselves to protect both sides of the hoop when he drives, he will be attacked by shoot-first point guards, and his screen/roll defense will also be explored.

  “Even so, Jeremy Lin has the skills, the basketball IQ, and the opportunity to eventually become a perennial All-Star.”

  After the All-Star break, the Knicks open with a 120–103 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers on February 29. The game is noteworthy for a few reasons. Namely, that Lin goes 19 and 13, and turns the ball over only once in a head-to-head showdown with Cavs point guard Kyrie Irving, who stole the Rising Stars spotlight from Lin. The league seems saturated with talented young point guards, and Irving may be the best newcomer of the group.

  “Coming off the Miami game, my focus was to maintain aggressiveness and take care of the ball,” Lin said, prophetically, before the game.

  “We need Jeremy—he’s got a lot going on right now, but we got his back and we support him,” says Carmelo Anthony after the Cavs game.

  It was still only Lin’s tenth meaningful game.

  10

  New York Knicks vs. Boston Celtics

  March 4, 2012

  It’s strange to see all those huge men playing a kids’ game.

  —my wife, Kristin

  Another game, another battle of marquee point guards. Celtics point guard Rajon Rondo is reportedly in the process of being dangled as trade bait by GM Danny Ainge for reasons (depending on who’s talking) ranging from “He has no jump shot” to “He’s a locker room cancer.” Ainge is in the process of refuting those rumors, saying that the team isn’t “actively” shopping Rondo.

  Foreshadowing: There will be a signature, career-defining point guard performance today, but it won’t come from Jeremy Lin.

  After picking up two quick first-quarter fouls, Lin sits for the remainder of the quarter and begins the second on the bench while Baron Davis leads the Knicks’ offense in the arena that Lin used to frequent as a fan while at Harvard. Harvard, incidentally, has produced four NBA players in its history, as opposed to eight U.S. presidents. Harvard’s president, Drew Gilpin Faust, met Lin in the tunnel before th
e game, and Lin’s college coach, Tommy Amaker, sits courtside. The pressure appears to be getting to Lin. He throws two sloppy outlet passes in the second quarter, resulting in two more turnovers, prompting former Knick coach and current ABC commentator Hubie Brown to say, “His passing has been a foot too long in the transition game.”

  “Do you get the sense that he’s trying too hard?” chimes in Mike Tirico.

  Of Lin’s lack of minutes, Brown says, “The main thing is to win games and save your guys, physically.”

  Lin hits an off-balance shot in the second quarter to notch his first points of the game. He’ll follow that with a beautiful lob to Iman Shumpert for his first assist. But Davis, a former All-Star, leads the team with four assists, and the offense looks more comfortable with him on the floor.

  “There’s a lot of joy in the way the entire Knick team has played,” says Tirico of Lin’s improbable run. Former benchwarmer Steve Novak’s ascension has mirrored Lin’s. He’s become a key contributor, along with Shumpert. The Knicks seem to be well on their way to implementing the “marquee-sidekick-sidekick-role players” championship model—though it still remains to be seen who the “marquee” ingredient is in the equation. At halftime, Lin has 4 turnovers and 3 fouls, while Rajon Rondo has 7 points and 7 assists.