Today, Lakers "coach" seemed set to rest Kobe tonight. So Lin fans are in high gear speculation mode:
Will Lin start? Will Lin get more PT? Will Lin get chance to breakout?
Lin fans are clutching at straws. The only relevant questions is will Lin be set free and traded before February deadline? And who will he sign with in free agency.
Because folks, barring a major injury to Kobe (and I don't wish it, believe me), this will be a lost year for Lin. Oh sure, he will learn from his experience in a bad situation, as he always does. He will come out of this LA fiasco a stronger person. But there are 58 very painful games for Lin fans to watch until the season is done.
This is a lost year for Lin, 26. In his prime. Up against yet another idiot coach like McFail, both control freaks, who don't like creative players who go outside their rigid system. Unless their last names are Harden and Kobe.
If it wasn't so painful for Lin fans, we could laugh at the absurdity of the way Lin, with all his potential, is used and abused by Scott. What sane coach wastes a player who can do so much for a team if allowed to? What sane coach benches Lin to start Ronnie Price, a 32-year-old career marginal point guard (I use that term loosely)? What coach with a brain sees Lin have a great first half with 10-12 points and 5 assists, and benches him for much of the rest of the game?
Many subplot issues here. #1: Tanking?
If you are in stealth tank mode, as the Lakers are in order to keep their top 5-protected pick the Suns have in the horribly failed Nash trade, do you use let Lin help you WIN games? I think not.
#2 Kobe must star in every game. Let's be honest, we all know the only reason a retread, three times fired coach like Scott was hired was to insure, like a bodyguard, that nobody is allowed to star beside his Royal Highness. Scott is hired "muscle." He stands at Kobe's side with arms folded, face mean and menacing, a bruiser with small brain and big muscles, there to make sure this doesn't happen. And there are only two players capable of outshining Kobe on this team. Lin, of course. And Nick Young. Young can do it, but only with his shooting arm. And Scott knows that Young on any given night is liable to shoot himself in the foot and look bad by bad shooting. Lin is another story.
Lin can score, and make the kind of dazzling assists that Kobe CAN'T, and excite the crowd into a frenzy. In Kobe's World, that is a no-no. Only Kobe is allowed to ignite adoring passion in a crowd.
And so Lin is in a "damned if I do, and damned if I don't" world.
Is this fair to a player who defied all the odds, a Harvard (Harvard?) undrafted free agent, an Asian-American (do they play basketball?) who has destroyed every bias there is and excited the hearts of everybody who wants just a chance to prove they can be more than people think they can be?
Life ain't fair.
Lin knows that.
A lesser person would crumbled under the pressure of bias and abuse.
But Lin is a special person.
Let me get this straight. I am not arguing that Lin is an elite point guard or future Hall of Famer. I believe he is a B+ or A- point guard, which any Lin fan would be thrilled to see him credited as.
When I started covering the Knicks in 1979-80, I was just two years removed from being a crazy Knicks fan who could only afford to sit in the nosebleed seats. Never did I imagine that I would be not only covering and traveling with the Knicks as The Star-Ledger beat writer, but that after a practice when my idol, Willis Reed, would challenge me to a game of H-O-R-S-E and I'd get to play with him. I was star struck.
But after nine years as beat writer, and another 10 as a fill in Knicks writer, I became so jaded with the NBA game of basketball, that in 1997, when I left the newspaper, I didn't read another sports story or watch an NBA game until 2011, when the bitterness of dealing with arrogant, nasty players (there were many major exceptions) finally wore off.
So I started watching the Knicks. They weren't better than a .500 team, but they were fun to watch as they moved the ball and played the game the way it was supposed to play. The Garden was energized because they played like the glory years Knicks team, without the great players.
And then came Melo. Four starters were traded for Melo by an owner, the son of a rich father who had never accomplished anything on his own, who wanted him as his love child.
The fun times disappeared for me.
And then came this player waived many times, reduced to the D-League, who somehow ended up on the Knicks bench, a third string point guard.
We know what happened. Linsanity. A thrilling, amazing sports story that excited not only the NBA, but international fans.
Which brings us back to the present.
Unfortunately.
Lin needs to ride this
season out and keep his spirits up. I believe his faith in God and his inner
competitive nature will allow him to. It's probably harder on Lin fans than
Lin, to deal with this lost season.
But once we signed on for the journey, we have accepted that there will be peaks and valleys, and I believe that TRUE Lin fans will not abandon Lin in frustration.
"Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me."
Psalm 23:4
Hang in there Lin fans. If you truly believe, then better days are to come.
I do.