A Reason to Watch the NBA

So here we a little over a month into the NBA season and up until Saturday I haven’t really been that excited about the season. I’ve been a Lakers fan since I was a child. My grandpa was a Lakers fan, and he taught me to be one, too.

Those were the days of Magic, Kareem, Worthy, Coop, and Byron Scott. Even during the post Magic-HIV years when Sedale Threat ran the team, I was still a fan. Then the years of Nick Van Exel, Elden Campbell still stayed with them. I still loved the team, but after the lockout, the failed Odom/Gasol trade, the even more bogus Odom trade, I was a little disenfranchised. Until last Saturday . . .  .

Enter Jeremy Lin. The first Chinese-American to play in the NBA. From Harvard, Lin stands 6’3” and weighs 200 pounds. The Knicks, who had previously lost 11 of their last 13 games, and whose best option at point guard was Baron Davis (still a few weeks away from being cleared to play), and whose number three point guard was Mike Bibby all of a sudden inserts Jeremy Lin.

Undrafted out of college, Lin was picked-up by the Golden State Warriors (Lin hails from nearby Palo Alto, CA) and completely outshone the number one pick, John Wall, in the preseason summer league. The Warriors needed cap room to make tender an offer sheet for D’Andre Jordan (whom the Clippers resigned) so they released Lin at the beginning of the year. The Houston Rockets picked him up, but they needed cap room to try to sign Samuel Dalembert  so they dropped him. Enter the Knicks who snatched him up and promptly shipped him to the D-League.

Last Saturday the Knicks played the New Jersey Nets and D’Antoni, with no other options pretty much said, “Let’s put him out there and see what we got.”

Lin responded with 25 pts, 7 assists, and 5 rebounds. Most importantly, the Knicks won. On Monday night against the Jazz,  who just beat the Lakers last Friday,  Lin played 44-plus minutes and put up 28 pts, 8 assists, 2 boards as he shot over 50 percent from the field. The Knicks won back-to-back games for the first time since January 9 and 11th.

And this bring me to my reason to get really excited about the NBA now. Watching my cousin play ball! Ok he’s not really my cousin, but most people think all Chinese people look alike… .

And tomorrow night, Lin will be on-display for all of Southern California as the Lakers play in New York versus the Knicks. Here’s to the newest superstar in the Big Apple!