NFL 2012 Week One

And another NFL season is underway, which for me brings melancholy feelings in that it indicates the unofficial end of summer and the start of the steady march towards the cold days winter. These half-full half-empty feelings are eclipsed only by those experienced at the start of the NBA season, but I digress...

Not much to report, other than the San Francisco 49ers surprising everyone except themselves and their supporters (present company included) by going into the house that cheese built and "upsetting" the Packers. I certainly found it strange that all these pundits were picking Green Bay to win without much trepidation: you have arguably the #1 defense in the league going against arguably it's top offense -- a wash -- but on the other side of the ball, you have a swiss-cheese defense going against a middle-of-the-pack offense with improved weaponry. I'm not saying this automatically spells a 49er victory, but it should certainly be enough to offset the home-field advantage and make the game's outcome a difficult pick. If nothing else, didn't anyone see what the Giants did -- when their defense was performing on all cylinders -- in Green Bay the last time a meaningful game was played there?

This was the one game I watched fully, and if the officiating was any indication, Lord help us in 2012. As a fan, your gut tells you to say your team got an unfair share of calls against it; as a person who keeps his emotions in check, I know there were just far too many questionable calls on both sides of the ball. So while the non-call on the block in the back during Green Bay's TD punt return was easily the biggest game-changing referree error of the game, that was only due to the immediacy with which it affected the scoreboard. The game's outcome turned out the way it should have, but there is easily a missed interefence call that disrupted a drive or two for both teams.

In any case, kudos to the Niners for hitting the ground running in a big game on the road. Big things lie ahead if they just keep playing their game, improving every week, and believing in 'team team team'.

* Sports Illustrated's Peter King gets a big huge shout-out for coining a term that really should be standard issue around the NFL:
"Did you see the silly interception Mark Sanchez threw on the first possession of the Jets' season? Rolling out on second down at his 47, Sanchez neared the sideline when, for reasons known only to him, he tried way too hard to make something happen, flipping the ball *in Favrian style* to tight end Jeff Cumberland. But safety Bryan Scott picked it off"

Priceless! Favrian! Has there ever been a more perfect marriage of player and tendency than described here? Every ill-advised, overly-forced pass should henceforth be labeled "Favrian". Hell, I'm submitting this to Webster's. There's simply no quarterback in NFL history with a greater tendency to get himself in trouble trying too hard to force an issue than Brett Favre. I may start using this term in analogies outside of football, it's so perfect. Take a bow Mr. King. Take a bow.

Dwight Howard: Flip-flopper, or selfless nice guy?

Ah yes, the ongoing Dwight Howard saga. Even way off in Mars, the story has grown rather wearisome. So, I will dispense with the usual recap and get down to usual uniquely-skewed Martian viewpoint.

What if just about every one of you critical of Dwight for repeatedly changing his mind have it completely wrong? Let's see, run both of these scenarios through your thinking cap and see which one makes the most sense:

Scenario 1: Dwight Howard, the affable lovable smiling character we've known, is torn between feelings of loyalty for the NBA city that's cheered him from day one, and a desire to start anew on a new team. He doesn't want to leave Orlando high and dry (like a certain other franchise center did over a decade prior), so he requests a trade, allowing the team to get value upon his departure. The trade deadline comes, but the team, unhappy with the offers that've come their way, doesn't pull the trigger on any deals. So, again, rather than leave the team for nothing, Dwight signs an extension, giving the team one more trade cycle -- the summer of 2012 -- to make a deal for him.

Scenario 2: Dwight, the uber-selfish Orlando hater we've all come to know, can't wait to leave the team and city, so he demands a trade. The trade deadline comes and goes, but the team is either unable or unwilling to find a deal for him. Dwight, by some random act of coincidental timing, suddenly rediscovers his love for all things central Florida, and decides to stick it out for another year, and signs an extension. Then, two months later, he again morphs back into Bizzaro-Superman, decides that he's fed up with everything from Mickey Mouse to the inability to pay state taxes, reverses course yet again and demands a trade.

Hmm.

Everyone is so incredulous that someone could (supposedly) change their mind repeatedly in such a short period of time. Well humans, is it not possible, that perhaps, just perhaps, it sounds utterly ridiculous because...it never happened? Is it not at all possible that Dwight's biggest flaw is simply trying to please everyone? For being too self*less*? That for example the alleged 'blackmail' comment was in reference to a reneged promise to trade him as quickly as possible for a reasonable offer to (one of) his choice destinations?

Just something to chew on, if you ever get tired of masticating on his name that is.

- Disclaimer: nothing of the above is a hard-set opinion on past events. Just something to make us all think: does what I believe even make a bit of sense?

Team Names: Plural? Singular? Both? Here Is THE Answer

Now that the first all-singular (and all-weather) Finals in North American sports history is upon us (wait, the Tampa Bay Lightning and Colorado Avalanche have yet to square off in the Finals, right?), a long-standing dilemma has reared its head once again: how do we treat singular-sounding team monikers such as the Utah Jazz, Miami Heat and Minnesota Wild: as plural (like the rest of the team names), or singular?

I recently read an article in the Chicago Sun-Times where the writer mixed and matched singulars and plurals with the team names; i.e. he wrote sentences such as "the Heat is" and "the Bulls are". Now, while this seems to be perfectly acceptable to some people, it bugged the living hell out of me. I have long believed that team names are plural, in all cases, end of story. However, being the objective chap that I am, I went googling thru the interwebs for support of my belief.

Sadly, until now, there seems to be no singular consensus on the usage, with arguments made on both sides...until now. Strap yourselves in my English-speaking Western-Hemispherical Earthlings; I shall put this ambiguity to rest once and for all.

First, for those who think we should strictly follow singular/plural rules, I have news for you: you already break your own shoddy theory every day of your life. Would you tell us that Ford *is* hiring while General Motors *are* laying off employees? Do you say that Dunkin' Donuts are opening a new location? Do you say that this Starbucks are closed? No, you don't. Because you recognize that type of flip-flopping sounds dumb, that we have all accepted that a company's name refers to a singular entity.

Well, it's time to stop flopping around like the Miami Heat on defense when it comes to team names. We have equally well-established rules when it comes to team names: that they refer to a small group of athletes, that we preceed them with the word "the", and that they are plural. The Bulls are injury-prone. The 49ers are poised for a title run. The Knicks are an enigma. And yes, The Heat are down 1-0. The Thunder are clicking on all cylinders. And no, it doesn't sound awkward or incorrect. You are talking about a team of athletes, not a singular atmospheric disturbance.

What I found particularly amusing was one blog I found on the topic -- lisakusko.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/how-the-miami-heat-upset-the-grammar-world/ -- where the writer nearly came to a similar conclusion, yet ended with the following:
"What's the difference? Maybe having the word 'the' in front of band and team names makes the plural version a natural choice."

Umm, maybe? Actually, that's exactly it my fellow grammar-ponderer. We don't stick 'the' in front of franchise names unless we're including another descriptor (the Starbucks franchise, the General Motors brand) because, again, we recognize sports teams (and also music bands as he pointed out) as different entities than corporations. Same as we do when referring to the companies behind the self-same sports teams (the New York Yankees organization verses New York Yankees history).

So, again, unless you're prepared to walk around flipping all over the place saying "the Ford is building a new plant" or "General Motors are releasing a new hybrid" or "this Starbucks are closed", please stop the flop with sports team names. Strict rules of singulars and plurals have never applied to brand names and corporations. They need not apply here.

The Falling Price Of Hot Air

The price of hot air must be falling precipitously, because it seems writers are spewing it all about with more callousness than ever. Having previously said that I would be handing out awards for sportwriting ineptitude, I will introduce my current target of ire, the one Ian Levy, who, in http://m.espn.go.com/nba/story?storyId=7581330&wjb=, wrote:

"For all the scoring and distributing Lin has done, [the New York Knicks] offense has been only marginally more efficient. I'm happy for the Knicks and Jeremy Lin, but plenty of problems remain unfixed in New York."

Right away, that statement bothered me, because it seemed to fly in the face of everything we've been witnessing. And when something I read or hear doesn't quite sound right, it tends to stick in my mind and annoy me like a poorly-designed t-shirt tag. Could this be correct? Was the Knicks offense pre-Lin -- the main anchor weighing down the team's poor record -- really be only "marginally" worse than the one that's been passing and swinging the ball to and fro, racking up high assist-to-FG ratios, and playing happily inspired basketball together, during this streak? I had to fact-check.

And fact-check I did; after which, armed with the stats, I concluded that either Levy 1) is a complete liar, 2) didn't bother to do any homework to qualify or quantify his statement, 3) is unschooled as to what offensive efficiency actually is, or 4) is very unclear on the meaning the word "marginal". The Knicks, prior to Lin, scored roughly 99.5 points per 100 possessions, which ranked them 25th in the NBA in offensive efficiency. During the current win streak, they have been pouring in over 105 points per 100, which would be good for around 8th-best in the NBA.

Perhaps Ian can explain how jumping 17 spots in offensive efficiency ranking is a "marginal" improvement. I suppose an "adequate" improvement is then, what, the 30th-ranked team instantly becoming the top-rated team overnight? I'm not sure what a "good" improvement would be though. Perhaps being able to beat the NBA's 50-greatest-players team, or to outscore Zeus and his collection of Greek gods.

What would cause Ian to make such a patently-false statement? Did he see the high rate of turnovers the Knicks are still producing and conclude -- jump to conclude, rather -- poor efficiency? That in of itself would be pretty dumb, seeing as how FG% is a better, albeit oldschool, measure of offensive efficiency. Looking at effective FG%, the Knicks are around .500 for the streak, a good number and much (not marginally, much) better than the .474 they're averaging for the year overall. So it couldn't be that. On the other hand...maybe we're just overthinking this and giving this writer too much credit. Given that the "marginal" statement smelled fishy from the start, perhaps that alone is evidence of the nether-regions source from which the statement originated.

For making baseless statements without bothering to do the two minutes of work it takes to validate them, you Ian Levy are our latest Sportswriting Moron Of The Week.

Keep talking and writing sports analysts. The Moron-Awards committee will find you soon enough.

* So former Denver Nugget and Chinese-league escapee J.R.Smith announced he will sign with the Knicks. This after a friend informed me that the esteemed Stephen A. Smith had to restrain himself from cussing his co-analysts on an ESPN show who suggested J.R. would possibly choose NY over the Clippers. Stephen whitled down the comparison to a choice between "playing with" Jeremy Lin or Chris Paul, a comparison that is both simple-minded, myopic, and may actually be a logical fallacy. To be technical, both the Nuggets and Knicks would use J.R. off of the bench, so it's a little faulty to say he would be "playing" with Lin or Paul; he'd be playing primarily with their backups. Furthermore, if you look at the teams' rotation, you'd have to say that J.R. would get more playing time in NY than in LA, former all-star and free-agent signee Caron Butler being juuuust a bit more accomplished than second-year player Landry Fields. So that further erodes the notion of "playing". Finally, it also is worth noting that the Knicks can and were offering their full mid-level exception of $2.5 million over this season *and* next season, whereas the Clippers could only offer the veteran's minimum salary. More money, a longer contract, more playing time and a more significant role on the team. Suddenly, Stephen A.'s "dumb" choice seems like it got "smartified". But hey, just keep opting for histrionics and hyperbole Stephen...it might not always make you right, but it's certainly made you successful. I ain't mad at you for that. It sure is fun to be able to repeatedly punch holes in these tirades.

Anyways, I'm off, back to the Martian grind...

Melo's O, Iman's No-Go, and other tidbits

* I'm still annoyed by all this Carmelo-will-kill-the-offense talk being bandied about. Not since "Bobby Brown introduced Whitney to coke!" have we seen a bigger revisionist historical account being so widely accepted. (And for the record, Whitney was a 26-year-old, world-travelling, other-worldly star of a woman when she met a little 20-year-old young man named Bobby in 1989. If you think Whitney made it thru the entirety of the 1980s entertainment party scene without being exposed to and sampling coke lines, you are a gullible blithering idiot. I know that's harsh, but it's 2012, so apparently, nothing else has gotten thru your rose-coloured glasses by now. Whitney found coke the same way Darryl Strawberry, Doc Gooden, Len Bias, Bobby, Rick James, and every other entertainer and athlete in the 1980s did: by being a megastar and going to parties where coke lines were laid out like pretzels and dip. Please buy a clue...As for Whitney, it's utterly sad that we lost her so young. 48 is just too young. Whitney, we will always love you too, your talents and personal demons alike. May your soul be at peace.)

But as I failed to restrain myself from responding to the empty-headed recitations of Carmelo's supposed offensive deficiencies, I came across a few more interesting, glaring, statistics:

2011 Nuggets: with Melo: 107.75 ppg. w/o Melo: 107.16 ppg.
2011 Knicks: w/o Melo: 106.2 ppg. with Melo: 106.8 ppg.

Hello! For all the "Nuggets are better without Melo" talk du dour, both the Nuggets AND the Knicks scored more points per game with Carmelo on their teams than without? Like hell you say! How could this be?

It "be" for the simple sad fact that this generation of people, armed with all the tools of the Information Age, are every bit of the -- and maybe moreso -- misinformed, lazy robots as we've seen in any other generation. It is...well, sad. If Carmelo somehow "clogs" an offense, then I'd hate to see what happens when we add Liquir Plum-r.

* Iman Shumpert snubbed for the Rookie-Sophomore Challenge game.
Are you kidding me? Like, are you for real? Let's take a look at the rookies who *were* selected:
MarShon Brooks (Nets), Kyrie Irving (Cavs), Brandon Knight (Pistons), Kawhi Leonard (Spurs), Markieff Morris (Suns), Ricky Rubio (Wolves), Tristan Thompson (Cavs), Kemba Walker (Bobcats), Derrick Williams (Wolves).
Irving, Rubio, Brooks, all don't-even-try-to-argue selections. Walker, Knight, Williams, Morris (as of late), no qualms. But umm...Kawhi Leonard? Tristan Thompson?

Let's get something out right now: since early in the season, nba.com has had Iman Shumpert firmly seated in the 3rd slot on The Rookie Ladder (their rookie rankings). Basically the best of the class outside of Rubio and Irving. Walker has currently joined the upper rankings, so Shumpert is now 4th. Hardly anything to be upset over. But the 3rd-to-4th best rookie in the entire NBA doesn't make the rookie challenge? Leonard isn't even in the top-10, and Thompson? He didn't even make the just-missed-the-cut list. How do you not find room on this team for the rookie who's top-5 in the entire NBA in steals? I rarely complain about snubs this openly...but this one defies any stat-based, performance-based, by-position-based, or any other, explanation.

To quote Coach D'Antoni, upon receiving the news of Shumpert's snub: "Defensively I can guarantee there's no rookie better. That's half the game; so half the game he's better and the other half he's played well. He's been put into a spot where he had to be the point guard and he's not naturally a point guard. His best position is the two. He can play three. He's probably one of our best post defenders. He has to get better like all rookies, but he's played well. I'm shocked."

I am too coach. I am too.

* There seems to be more and more bad news recently. Rest in peace to ex-49er great, wide receiver Freddie Solomon. One of Joe Montana's top-2 targets in the 1982 and 1985 Super Bowl runs, and still the 49ers team-record holder for highest yards-per-catch average over an entire season (a hefty 21.4). Also, rest in peace to ex-Met, Hall-Of-Fame catcher Gary Carter. One of those guys who carried himself in a way and gave the vibe that made you feel you couldn't help but respect and admire him, no matter which team or rival you rooted for. Hope they're both at peace.

Can Melo and Lin Co-Exist?

Now that we’ve gotten through our first week of Linsanity, had a chance to breathe in-between games, and started looking towards the future of the 2012 New York Knicks, there is one question de jour that has emerged as all the rage among all circles: can Carmelo Anthony fit in with Jeremy Lin?

We’ve heard the supposed pitfalls; Melo is a ball-stopper, a ball-hog, a black-hole on offense. In some ways, there can be some truth to the criticisms, at least if you watched the P.L. Knicks (that’s Pre-Lin) this year. However, there is something completely laughable in the predictions of impending doom certain to befall the Knicks upon Carmelo’s return from injury. There seems to be this implied (and sometimes expressed) notion that Anthony has never played with a capable, offense-initiating point guard at any point in his career before now. And to that notion I retort: does the name Chauncey Billups mean anything to you people?

Whether or not Carmelo’s return will take the Knick offense and team to greater heights remains to be seen. But let’s put some things in their proper perspective. Last year, with Chauncey, Anthony, and Amar’e Stoudemire leading the way, getting the ball into the bucket was not at the top of the list of Knick problems. Hell, it wasn’t on the list at all. New York ended the 2011 season ranked fifth in the NBA in offensive efficiency (108.3 points per 100 possessions). Let me repeat that for you: the Knicks were the fifth-best team last year on the offensive end of the court.

Their problem last year, as apparently the scant few of us with any sense would recall, was on defense. The Knicks ranked 23^th in the league in team defensive efficiency in 2011 (106.9 p/100). Simply put, they gave up just as many points than they scored. When you look at it from that perspective, you can understand why the Knicks essentially shed Chauncey Billups in lieu of Tyson Chandler in the short offseason. Neither the Knicks nor their fans had any reason to cry tears at not having the assets to make a run for Chris Paul. Paul is a decent-to-good defender, and can disrupt an offense with his ball-hawking and playing the lanes, but 6-foot point guards are not what turn defenses around in this league. Big men are. CP3 wouldn’t have solved the Knicks' most glaring deficiency, their defensive woes, the way Chandler has, and as much as I love CP3's offense, scoring the ball wasn’t even the Knicks’ problem in the first place.

And just how much has the addition of Chandler, and other changes such as the emergence of ball-hawks like Iman Shumpert and improving players like Landry Fields, meant on defense? The Knicks now give up 97.7 points per 100 possessions, good enough to rank 10^th in the league. Scoring in this lockout-shortened season has been down, but you can’t mistake a team’s moving up 13 spots in a particular rank relative to the rest of the league.

This year, however, the Knicks problem has been that, without a capable point guard P.L., their offense has suffered – a lot. It is down 10 points per 100 possessions from last year, and that 5^th-best ranking has fallen all the way down to 23^rd. However, seeing as how Carmelo and Amar’e were around for a significant portion of last season, and obviously this season as well, they are the constants here, so they are not what has changed on offense. What has changed is the Chauncey Billups-for-Tyson Chandler swap. One might conclude, then, that they simply exchanged one problem for another. However, it is much more difficult in this league to find a quality big man than it is to find a capable guard. Chauncey, were he being objective, shouldn’t have felt slighted by the Knicks’ decision to amnesty him – though he completely reserves the right to put that chip on his shoulder, right or wrong. They needed to shore up their defense in the worst way.

In any case, let me drop some more numbers on you. 46%: that is what Anthony shot in a Knick uniform alongside Chauncey Billups last year. 26.3: the number of points per game he scored during that time. And the best number of all, 42.4%: that is what Carmelo shot from 3-point range in those 27 games. The shooting percentages, by the way, are better than he's shot in any season for his career. So apparently, whether he black-holes the offense, puts up bad shots, or whatever other criticisms people come up for his game…42.4%. I don’t really need to say another word or quote another fact.

Now, I'm loathe to making predictions, and I'm not about to put my neck on a block for the possible future performance of total strangers, but the things that people are saying about Carmelo's past results are, simply put, complete and utter fiction. If Jeremy can keep getting by his defender and into the lane, Carmelo should have open mid-range and beyond jumpshots...the same kind of shots he knocked down last year.

As time goes on, incidentally, it appears that Lin is going to have to develop a left-hand dribble drive, or learn to drive to his left in some fashion. All the sneaky moves and quickness can only take you so far when people know you're only working one side of the court. However, he seems to have a tirelessly studious approach to the game -- I read a story that highlighted how he's been known to spend an hour or two in practice working on a single move, over and over and over again -- so there shouldn't be any reason that he shouldn't eventually add that and other facets to his game. And, surrounded by scorers and two low-post guys that love the pick-and-roll more than anything, the team has a lot of complementary parts and, as such, loads of potential.

And they will all happily co-exist, and give themselves a chance to max out that potential. Yes, even Carmelo.

Linsanity: What Took So Long?

A former coworker and friend of Chinese descent hit me a text this morning to say that he watched a sports talk show where the analysts were baffled as to why so many teams purportedly passed on Jeremy Lin. They wondered what took so long for the Linsanity train to leave the station. My friend, understandably, wondered why they didn’t just come right out and point to the race factor. I, however, wondered who in the world was paying these clearly uninformed, baffled, head-scratching pundits he was watching.

Let’s just get this out of the way: race was and is certainly a factor in the story of Jeremy Lin’s path to NBA relevance. The question is, however, just how much of a factor, and when?

That the sports talking heads my friend was watching couldn’t come up with valid reasons to explain Lin’s path to the Knicks is unforgivable, as far as I’m concerned at least. Again, these people are PAID to know what they’re commenting on. 5 minutes on Google – plus an objective mind – is all it takes to understand the long road that brought Lin to this point. Maybe 7 minutes if your internet connection is slow.

The road to Lin’s professional career begins, naturally, in high school. Jeremy as a prep was a 2-time MVP of his high school league, was rated the #1 player in California by virtually every major publication in the state, and his team had a high-profile state-championship victory over a much higher-rated team. Yet, Jeremy did not receive a single scholarship offer from even one Division-1 school. Let me repeat that: the consensus #1 player in the largest state in the entire United States did not receive so much as ONE scholarship offer. Now, objectivity might allow one to say, perhaps there were some other mitigating circumstances here; common sense tugs at you to point to his ethnicity. I have a very hard time believing there are circumstances mitigating enough to warrant his being bypassed by every Division-1 college in the country, outside of him being a convicted serial murderer. There’s just no plausible explanation that is going to be compelling enough, outside of “Asian guys can’t ball”.

So, Lin took his skills to Harvard, where he excelled in the Ivy League. By the end his college career, he was the #2 scorer in Ivy League history, and racked up equally-impressive numbers across the board. However, on NBA draft day 2010, his name went uncalled. Now, you may say again that race was a factor, but an equally-valid reason may simply be the view of the Ivy League at the time (or, at least, until Harvard’s current surge into national rankings). I’ll leave that call up to you. I tend to believe him coming out of the Ivy League is at least as much a factor as race or anything else.

So, from that point, Lin took his talents to the NBA summer league, and it is from there that it becomes increasingly difficult to blame race as the singular factor in his being “passed over”. He impressed everyone by going toe-to-toe with John Wall in one game in particular, raising eyebrows and getting notice is an fair amount of print publications. Measuring up to the #1 pick and eventual rookie-of-the-year will have that effect. He eventually found his way to the Dallas Mavericks prior to the 2010-2011 season – and it is at that point where simple circumstance and bad luck becomes the #1 factor for his delayed path to NBA relevance.

The 2011 Dallas Mavericks, for who may not know, were pretty stacked at the point guard position, with future first-ballot Hall of Famer Jason Kidd, speedy J.J. Barea, and capable Rodrigue Beaubois. It’s not much of a stretch to see how Lin wouldn’t make such a team. Eventually, he got picked up for the duration of the 2011 season by the Golden State Warriors. Golden State, however, is pretty well-to-do in their backcourt, with sharp-shooting Stephen Curry and the perennial almost-an-all-star Monta Ellis, as well as veterans Charlie Bell and Acie Law. Also not a stretch to see how a rookie might have trouble getting much more than garbage time on that roster – which is exactly what Lin got in 40-some-odd games for the season.

2012 is where the story gets interesting. The major factor in Lin’s long road at that point becomes the NBA lockout, which led to a truncated free agency and training camp period, and a compressed regular-season schedule built for robots, not human athletes. The Warriors, looking to clear cap space to make an offer to the L.A. Clippers restricted free agent center DeAndre Jordan, parted ways with Lin via the waiver wire. Now, we all like Lin’s talents, but when you already have Curry and Ellis, and you think you have a chance to snag someone like Jordan to man your frontcourt, the rookie guard on your roster is gonna be the one to hit waivers. Hey, that’s life.

Next up was the Houston Rockets, who claimed Lin off of the waiver wire. Houston’s backcourt roster, however, already consisted of Kyle Lowry, Jonny Flynn, Kevin Martin, Courtney Lee, and Gordon Dragic. These are all guys who have long proven they can play in the NBA. Honestly, it’s more a wonder why the Rockets bothered to pick up Lin at all. Perhaps they thought they would still somehow be parting ways with Martin and Dragic via trade (similar to the Lakers-Rockets-Hornets deal that was declined by the Hornets owner), and would need to add depth. Not so far-fetched. However, the Rockets soon found they too needed to shed roster spots in order to sign a center, free-agent Samuel Dalembert. It was deja-vu all over again.

Moreover, with the lockout-condensed off-season, there was no time for a guy like Lin to even show he could outwork one of those proven guys. In a typical year, NBA training camps last the entire month of September, followed by a 3-week preseason schedule, then a few days to a week layoff before the real games begin. This season? After unlocking the doors to the arenas on December 9^th, teams had exactly 16 days till the Christmas Day start of the season. That’s over 7 weeks condensed into 2. 2 weeks to get guys into playing shape, practice, and prepare for the season. What would you spend those two weeks doing: practicing with the guys who have already produced for you and others in the past, or dropping their practice time to give workouts for brand new players? Exactly.

So, again, Lin hit the waiver wire, without even playing a game for the Rockets. Then is when the Knicks finally get involved. After an injury to guard Iman Shumpert in the first week of the season, the Knicks needed some insurance depth, not knowing how long Shumpert would be out, but fearing the worst. As it turned out, the initial 4-week prognosis for Shumpert’s injury turned into barely a 2-week stay-cation. Who knows, had that initial prognosis been for 1-2 weeks, would the Knicks have bothered to look outside the team to shore up their backcourt? We’ll never know. However, once Shumpert returned, and proved he was healthy, what happened to Lin? The Knicks sent him down to the NBA Developmental League.

Here is where the lockout really screws everything up – unless you’re a Knick fan. The schedule this season has teams playing 66 games over 120 days, somewhere around 55% of the days. A normal NBA schedule sees 82 games stretched over 6 months, somewhere around 175 days. So they’re usually playing closer to 45%-47% of the time. What suffers? Practice time. In that, there is none, barely. This season is the worst possible scenario under which an unproven 2^nd-year player acquired during the season would have the time to show off his skills. Knick coach Mike D’Antoni has been criticized for saying he had “no idea” what he had with Lin, but that criticism is completely unfair. Teams don’t even have adequate time to practice with their proven players, much less work out new guys.

However, after recording a triple-double in his first D-League appearance, Lin found his way back to the Knick bench. Why? Point guard Baron Davis. Once slated to be days away from taking the court for the Knicks, and looked upon (probably far too optimistically) as the possible savior to their season, Davis’ recovery hit a setback. An elbow infection halted his training cold, putting his return from a back injury completely on ice until the infection clears up. So once again, the Knicks found themselves in need of point guard depth. So then, finally, comes the day, Saturday February 4^th, the day desperation turns to hope. Out of answers, and running out of time, after giving Toney Douglas, the ghost of Mike Bibby past, and Iman Shumpert all ample opportunity to masquerade at point guard, Coach D’Antoni turned to the very end of his bench. And the rest, as they say, is history.

So, did race play a role in the delay of Jeremy Lin’s opportunity on the big stage? Certainly, at least early on in his basketball career it likely did to some degree. But people need to not be so callous to paint Houston, Golden State, Dallas or any other NBA franchise with the racism brush. By a fortunate set of circumstances, Jeremy wound his way onto the Knicks roster, and naturally, after watching this kid play for the bulk of last week, I am more than glad that things panned out the way they did. All hail the lockout!