Prior to this season, James Harden and Jeremy Lin were two players who’d never had the chance to write their own stories. In New York, Lin was pressed into service as both a humble standard-bearer and a basketball messiah, one whose actual abilities were obscured by the phenomenon he created. In Oklahoma City, Harden was a key cog for a Thunder team to build a dream on. (“I keep thinking about those three guys with their arms around each other,” Bill Simmons wrote in the aftermath of the deal that broke up the Harden-Kevin Durant-Russell Westbrook trio, sounding like someone weeping into his People magazine over a celebrity divorce.) Both players were prisoners of other people’s fantasies about what they should be.
Jeremy Lin a leader for Rockets
ESPN.comJeremy Lin became a Broadway sensation, a coveted free agent and a merchandising magnet in Asia, all in less than a year.
In Houston, Lin will return to a role he used to enjoy at Harvard — team leader.
The rebuilt Rockets met with the media on Monday before heading south to begin training camp, and they’ll turn to their charismatic new point guard for leadership and direction.
From the beginning, Melo has always been the Knick most threatened by Linsanity, and the most skeptical about it. There is no question that Lin’s ethnicity is a huge factor in his popularity—a bigger factor, even, than his actual play on the court, as splendid as it has been—but there’s also no question that Lin’s ethnicity is a huge factor in the ongoing suspicion that his marvelous play thus far is a mirage. Now obviously I can’t read Carmelo Anthony’s mind, but it sure seems like he still believes what a lot of people did in those flush first few days of Lin’s meteoric rise: he’t really be this good because he doesn’t look like a guy who’s really this good.
“If I really wanted to, I could have triple-digit endorsements,” Lin points out, but he does not. Instead, and in large part because Lin wanted to concentrate on basketball, he declined to cash in on the Linsanity gold-rush — namely, the mountain of business opportunities in Asia — and picked only three companies: Volvo, Steiner Sports, and Nike.
“A year ago, I was just trying to stay alive and fight day by day, just to be on a roster,” says Lin, who famously slept on couches upon his arrival in New York. “What I have now is way more than I ever would have dreamed of, and way more than I need.”
What he doesn’t have, though — and what he deeply misses about those magical two months, back when he was atop the sports world — is something that can’t be bought, and likely can’t be replicated elsewhere, again.
“I love the New York fans to death,” Lin says. “That’s the biggest reason why I wanted to return to New York. The way they embraced me, the way they supported us this past season, was better than anything I’ve ever seen or experienced. I’ll go to my grave saying that. What New York did for me was unbelievable. I wanted to play in front of those fans for the rest of my career.
Jeremy Lin’s Departure Teaches Knicks Fans Important Lesson About Getting Excited By The Knicks
So while I’m crying over this, I wonder if this means the Jeremy Lin Nike Air Force 1’s are now worthless or, like, Fabergé eggs.
The “Manhood” poster series was created by artist, and San Francisco native, Deborah Enrile Lao as a way to inspire young Asian American boys and men. The series consists of screen printed posters of five iconic Asian American men—Richard Aoki, George Takei, Jeremy Lin, Bruce Lee and DJ Qbert.
(via Posters Celebrate Asian American Masculinity, From George Takei to Jeremy Lin - COLORLINES)
From The Atlantic Wire:
“It went incredible,” Federico said in a report by Newsday’s Anthony Rieber. “I’m just so excited we had a chance to meet. We talked for an hour. I’m just so thankful.” Back in February, Federico sparked a web outrage after using the racist word in the headline on for a story that attributed a New York Knicks’ loss to the New Orleans Hornets to its Asian-American point guard Jeremy Lin. Federico called his word choice “an honest mistake,” but he was promptly fired amid allegations of racism. “You have to learn to forgive, and I don’t even think that was intentional,” Lin said last month when offered an apology from ESPN, and he made good on that on Tuesday.
[Atlantic Wire sourcing Newsday]
(Source: matthewkeys)
as though he wasn’t on the bench making shit money or playing in the D-league not more than 18 games ago before single-handedly reviving interest in professional basketball during a strike-shortened season while averaging around 19 points and eight assists per game and still making shit money for it, by the way.
Go fuck yourselves.
