Jeremy Lin’s Race Did Not Keep Him Down
Woke up early today and checked Facebook. One of the first things I encountered was a shared link concerning recent NBA sensation, Jeremy Lin. The comment involving the link was “urgh” and that was a fair assessment of the piece that was written by Yahoo Network Contributor Edwin Torres titled “Did Racism Keep Jeremy Lin Down?”
It is easy to see where Torres was coming from in regards to Lin’s race as he points to a number of examples, including the one of Jason Whitlock’s tweet, an incident in which he was a senior in college and a student yelled an offensive remark and using the example of a commentator referring to him as Vietnamese.
The first comment by Whitlock who has since apologized was definitely offensive, yet had no bearing on Lin getting a chance to show what he can do on the basketball court and the same can be said about the comment involving a student in the stands. As for the last example that is what is known as an honest mistake.
Also, mentioned in the article was Lin leading his high school team to a state championship after averaging 15.1 points and 7.1 assists per game and yet he didn’t receive any scholarship offers from a Division 1 school. While the 7.1 assists represent a very good number, the 15.1 points do not represent a number that would get the attention of a Division 1 school.
Lin did end up playing college basketball and it was at Harvard where he played all four years. Much like his high school numbers none of his statistics were going to wow NBA scouts and as a result he was not drafted. By now the story has been told of how Lin got his chance with the Golden State Warriors and was released just prior to the season beginning, the Houston Rockets then jumped into the fold and signed Lin only to let him go after signing Samuel Dalembert and finally Lin got his chance with the New York Knicks.
Now the rest is history and “Linsanity” is everywhere.
Yet, the most interesting part of Torres’ piece was the quote from Kobe Bryant who said “players don’t usually come out of nowhere. If you go back and take a look, his skill level was probably there but no one ever noticed.”
The assertion by Bryant is fair and yet it does happen. Lin did have to prove to the Warriors that he had the skills to be on a NBA roster in his rookie year. Even after he was let go the Warriors still wanted to bring him back if he had become a free agent.
Other examples besides Lin are Nikola Pekovic who has had an outstanding run this year since being inserted to the starting lineup for the Minnesota Timberwolves. Anthony Morrow, Reggie Williams and C.J. Watson were all undrafted players who the Warriors were able to develop into solid NBA players. Ben Wallace started his NBA career out slowly and went undrafted and yet when he got his chance to prove he could play he became the best defensive player and rebounder in the NBA.
So, it does happen in the NBA that a player may not be drafted and when given the shot that player makes the most out of his opportunity. That is what has happened to Lin and his success can be traced back to Lin making the best of an opportunity that was presented to him, which has nothing to do with race.
