Linsanity

I am actually looking forward to watching an NBA game this evening.  I'm not committing to the whole four quarters, which is how I can sit and watch the sun sink behind my house, turning the mountains

and the trees

bright yellow, while the NY Knicks and the Miami heat are battling on ESPN..

The first quarter of an NBA game is lackadaisical at best, which touches on my reluctance to invest more than an hour of my time.  Watching over-paid men give almost-but-not-quite-all to an endeavor makes me nutty. Coupled with officiating that is baffling, at best, the NBA is not at the top of my sports-viewing agenda.

Tobias Moskowitz, University of Chicago Booth Graduate School of Business professor and author of Scorecasting, reveal(s) the hidden forces that shape how basketball.....games are played, won and lost.  I love it when research proves that my ranting and raving has a factual basis.  According to Moskowitz, and his co-author, L. Jon Wertheim, refs call what they think they see and give an advantage to the home team...perhaps not consciously, but statistically proven none-the-less. 

"I don't believe in the NBA," my winter-time rant, now has factual underpinnings, and I rejoiced. 

But then came a smart Asian kid from Palo Alto and all of a sudden I became entranced with my former hometown heroes.  I grew up with the legendary Knicks.  Walt Frazier's portrait in oils graced our living room, thanks to my younger sister's concurrent obsessions with him and paint brushes.  Earl the Pearl, Dean the Dream, Willis Reed's magnificently huge hands





Reed in white

they were part and parcel of my teen age years.  Real heroes, winners on and off the court, even their orange and royal blue jerseys looked good for a while.  But they lost their lustre and I fell away from the fold.  Until Jeremy Lin arrived, that is.

An economics major from Harvard, younger brother of a NYC dwelling dentist on whose couch he slept after being called up by the Knicks, Lin is the living embodiment of everything good parents tell their children.  Be prepared.  Be ready.  Don't count yourself out.  Just because it hasn't been done before doesn't mean you can't do it now.  Your chance will come if you believe in yourself.

.  

He's broken all kinds of NBA records for the start of a career. He's energized the crowd and his teammates. The Knicks are winning and the fans are orgasmic and the sportscasters just don't know what to make of it.  ESPN's Stephen A. Smith says "He just doesn't look like a basketball player" and I am left wondreing why he wasn't fired on the spot.  NHL groupies are touting the red Wings home game winning streak and wondering what all the fuss is about. And women like me, fair-weather fans at best, are making a bee-line for the television when his games are being broadcast.

He's modest, well-spoken, dedicated and willing to learn.  His teammates adore him and parents can use him as an aceptable role model. This doesn't happen all that often denizens.  Maybe you shoud take a look.