Call him Lin-derella if you want but the Knicks new point guard may be the NBA’s Avant-garde …Or not. Either way, similar to Tom Brady or Kurt Warner’s meteoric rises in the NFL, Jeremy Lin has changed the fortunes of the Knicks franchise and may be here to stay.
Ninety-nine percent of the time, long-term NBA storylines are as predictable as what Donald Trump’s hair. Two weeks ago, the NBA was all abuzz about the Lob Angeles Clippers. Dwight Howard’s trade saga and the religious debate over whether stem cells could be used to repair Lebron James’ “clutch gene.”
However, in a surprising twist that not even M. Knight Shyamalan’s interference could ruin, an undrafted second year, four-time D-League call-up who was just days from being cut has suddenly become the NBA’s surprise 2012 Va-LIN-tine and is plastered on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Nobody thought he’d ever become an active contributor in an NBA rotation much less have a league-wide impact in two weeks during February.
While he was torching the Lakers for 38 on Friday night, the Atlanta Hawks players were in the locker room asking for Lin updates and started yelling when told he had 22 points and 5 assists. After struggling for most of Sunday night against Ricky Rubio’s Minnesota Timberwolves, Lin hit two-game winning free throws.
Last night, on the day his SI cover jinx should have taken effect Lin topped himself against the Toronto Raptors. Lin led New York back from a large first half deficit and then scored the final six points, which culminating in him rocking a sagging Jose Calderon to sleep with the dribble as the hourglass ticked down before calmly squaring up and delivering a dagger from behind the arc with half a tick remaining.
There’s no other explanation for Lin’s emergence besides the possibility that Lin is New York’s real life Peter Parker/Spiderman. As I’m typing this he’s probably web slinging into a burning building to rescue a family of four.
Let’s put this in perspective for a moment. Lin’s 109 total points surpassed Allen Iverson’s 101 for the most by any player in his first four starts since the 1976 NBA-ABA merger. Not including the 25 points he scored off the bench against New Jersey, Lin has also scored 136 points in his first five starts surpassing Shaq’s NBA-record 130 points in his first five starts.
With that said, it’s time to step onto a ledge overlooking a bed of rocks and jump the shark.
