photo by DvYang

Well, it’s been reported by numerous outlets that the thing we all knew was going to happen happened. Jeremy Lin is to leave the Knicks and take his spurious ball skills to the Houston Rockets, rendering my article from yesterday ultimately useless henceforth. Time well spent.

There’s not really much to worry about though, because the Knicks have year-in-year-out proven an adept perspicacity for basketball potential and success. Even though they’ve let Lin go, we can trust them. There’s no reason whatsoever to look to the Nets for some decent New York basketball next year. With acquisitions like the $15 million-dollar-man Steve Francis and his 11.3 Points Per Game in 2006-07, or first-round-pick Renaldo Balkman and his career 4 PPG, there is no reason to doubt the Knicks front office.

Everything in the last paragraph is not true.

But now that we do know the fate of the quickest sports phenomenon New York has seen in ages —not to rule out the possibility of Tim Tebow outpacing Lin by weeks— we do know a few things. We know what we’ll miss about Jeremy Lin and the excitement he brought to the vanilla, selfish Knicks.

Five Things We’ll Miss about Jeremy Lin:

1. Lintinis

There’s a reason that people mixed the name “Lin” with the word “insanity”. The sheer speed at which Lin hit the scene was maddening, so maddening that he began to influence one of the most storied cocktails ever.

At Arctica on Third Ave., Lintinis, a mixture of Bombay, blue curacao, and tonic became the house drink.

This, deservedly or not, boosted Jeremy Lin to James Bond status. I’m not sure how I feel about that, considering Bond is a much better shot than Lin, but now we have to go back to drinking boring ole alcohol.

2. Ball movement

It’s been heavily documented that Lin is a turnover machine. During his 940 minutes last season, Lin had 126 turnovers, about 0.13 turnovers/minute. The NBA’s leader in turnovers, John Wall, 255 turnovers in 2386 minutes played, about 0.1 t/m.

That doesn’t seem like much, but in per-minute speak, that’s humongous, and John Wall led the league in turnovers!

Put it this way, if Lin played as much as Wall, he would have had 319 turnovers.

But, aside from that number (which surely supports yesterday’s article. Hey! Time really was well spent!), Lin kept the ball in motion.

During his time on the court —and with the help of an injured Carmelo Anthony— the Knicks seemed to flow, cut and pass. The ball was always moving, which kept the game moving faster and more interesting.

Now that he’s gone, the offense will revert to one-stop-shopping, where it’ll live and die with Anthony’s ability to score.

3. A guy proud of his religion but who doesn’t punch us in the face with it

Tim Tebow is a nice guy and a philanthropist, and his faith is a major part of that, but I’m not sure if this is a great pump-up song before a football game.

Tebow once justified his vocalness about his faith by saying “If you’re married, and you have a wife, and you really love your wife, is it good enough to only say to your wife ‘I love her’ the day you get married? Or should you tell her every single day when you wake up and every opportunity?”

No, but I wouldn’t go around telling everyone else everyday that I do.

4. Humility

It’s often overlooked, especially in New York. But Lin’s willingness to park his butt on the bench until he got his chance doesn’t deserve oversight.

Lin, and probably because he didn’t have the credibility to make any demands, never spoke poorly or negatively about any of his teammates. No matter what trap questions he was asked last season:

“Whose offense will it be when Anthony returns?”

“Do you think you can play with Anthony?”

“Do you like playing with Anthony?”

He ignored the “I” in Lin. (See how tough it can be to play with a guy like Anthony?)

But now he’s gone, and that humility is gone. Guys like Anthony, whose ability to get coaches fired is second only to Dwight Howard’s, will run the show once again.

5. Unfortunate (or fortunate) editing oversights that result in quick backlash for companies as large as ESPN

Not sure if I should link to this or anything —NY Press probably can’t defend itself as well as ESPN— so I won’t.

But there was certainly a bit of comedy at the expense of that poor ex-ESPN employee.

Two Thing We Won’t Welcome about the Lin-less Knicks:

1. Raymond Felton and Twitter jokes like this from Grantland’s Bill Simmons:

After winning over the Asian community with Jeremy Lin, the Knicks now expect to win over fat people with Ray Felton.

— Bill Simmons (@sportsguy33) July 15, 2012

2. Grantland articles tacitly encouraging Knicks fans to ditch and root for the Nets.

–Nick Gallinelli

It’s a bit of an odd thing to begin with— Jeremy Lin’s “Linsanity” legacy. How often does 25 games started, one insane week, and post-season injuries and irrelevance constitute one of the most-talked-about monikers in all of sports?

photo by DvYang

Doesn’t Derek Jeter have a legacy, too? One with five World Series rings, over 2500 games, and a captaincy over the most famous sports team on earth?

So how is it that both of them have what we call a “legacy”? How is it that right now, Jeremy Lin is on the cover of ESPN.com, while Jeter, who is actually in season, and cruising to yet another AL East title, is by the wayside?

This isn’t a comparison between the two, because that’d be Linsane. But it’s a realization that this Lin attention has an extremely odd quality to it. And that’s a good thing. But now it might be over. Is that a good thing?

During the most fervent moments of “Linsanity”, New Yorkers sipped on Lintinis and Lin & Tonics, while  the Nom Wah restaurant in the heart of Chinatown held viewing parties in the midst of Time Warner’s inability to strike a deal with MSG (leaving 2.5 million New Yorkers without him, according to the Huffington Post). It was almost pandemonium. Insane, if you will? But it wasn’t always like that. And with the rush of enthusiasm that hit New York so quickly, it can be a bit hard to remember the spunky reserve that sat, all-day-in-all-day-out, at the edge of the New York Knicks bench.

For years Jeremy Lin was unremarkable. A Harvard star, but without the NBA size (Lin is listed generously at 6’3, 200 pounds), Lin went undrafted in the 2010 draft and floated around the NBA’s D-League (Development League), eventually landing on the Golden State Warriors roster. There, according to basketball-reference.com, he played in 29 games, averaged a meager 9.8 minutes per game, an even more meager 1.6 assists per game, and an even more meager 2.6 points per game.

He eventually was cut, and was picked up perfunctorily by New York.

And then, it was practically instant.

When Lin hit major minutes in the Knicks’s lineup on February 4, it marked the beginning of an 7-game win streak that carried until the 14, and, with some help from the symbol he represented —”an Asian-American in the NBA?! and he’s good?!” were the thoughts of many— marked one of the quickest rises to fame in recent sports history. Quick enough to be quantified.

Honestly, the #Knicks franchise has spent money on Stephon Marbury, Eddy Curry, and Steve Francis.Give Lin a shot to grow. #NBA

— NBA Wired (@NBAWired) July 16, 2012

According to The Hollywood Reporter (who cited a social study by company General Sentiment), in the days between Feb. 6 and 14, Lin’s Twitter account, @JLin7, was the most-mentioned NBA player in social media. Based on the study, Lin was mentioned 2,610,684 times on Twitter in that timeframe— more than second-most Lebron James, whose regal handle @KingJames, has almost 5.5 million followers.

But it wasn’t just NBA-related. During the same time, Lin was mentioned more than an account whose following amasses near 18 million people. Said handle is that of our President, Barack Obama.

And it was more than just numbers on a relatively new social media sensation. Lin was a symbol for Asian-Americans across the globe. Lin stood brighter than usual because of his NBA-unique ethnicity.

Glancing quickly at a March Yahoo! blurb, Lin is the second-best Asian-American player to ever play in the NBA, and this without ever completing an entire NBA season.

According to the list, Lin is second behind Yao Ming, a similar sensation during much of the 2000s. The other two on the list? Yi Jianlian and Rex Walters. Who?

But the amount of  followers James has, despite Lin’s week of fame, outnumbers Lin’s by 4.5 million people, and symbolizes how Lin was possibly a bright flash in an otherwise disappointing Knicks frying pan.

Letting go of Jeremy Lin is one of the smartest things the Knicks have done in the last 10 years

— Joe Perrone (@Perrone27) July 16, 2012

If it wasn’t for the Knicks’s penchant for signing starpower rather than a full squad (i.e. overpaying Amar’e Stoudemire, whose knees (and defense) are so shaky that they were actually denied insurance and letting fan-favorite Landry Fields out of their grasp), maybe there wouldn’t be so much attention. Maybe the over-the-top contract, $25 million/3 years, from Houston, which would, after accounting for luxury tax, would cost the Knicks $30 million in the third year alone, would be recognized as a cost unpayable.

i’ll miss jeremy lin, but there’s no way they can pay $30 mil

— Chris Molicki (@chrismolicki) July 15, 2012

New York and its vast Asian-American culture birthed Lin’s story, but is now making it pretty tough for the Knicks avoid appearing loyalty-less.

But, like mentioned before, what’s the middleground between salary requirements and what makes so many New Yorkers so happy?

There are guys on the Knicks better than Lin. Carmelo Anthony is widely considered one of, if not the, best pure scorers in the NBA. Iman Shumpert is a quickly-developing shooting guard. Heck, you could even argue goggle-clad Stoudemire still has more in the tank than Lin.

But how much do stats and reps matter over a guy who only “Lin, Lin, Lins!” games?

According to a February WebProNews article, during Linsanity’s birth week, MSG (the host-channel for Knicks games) ratings increase an outrageous 87%.

Jeremy Lin is not worth 30million

— Harry Fraud (@Kick_Push) July 16, 2012

A whole lot of attention for a week’s worth of winning, but then when Lin got hurt in late March, and subsequently sat for the season’s duration (including the playoffs) Lin was a large part forgotten.

Is all the new hoopla just a result of the suffocating New York publicity? Is a guy who means so much to Asian-American communities worth the money to make the fans happy? What does he mean to Asian-American communities? Is he even actually good? Will he even stay healthy?

One New Yorker, and probably to the frustration of many New Yorkers, hasn’t fully bought into Linsanity, and thinks Marcus Camby, Ray Felton, and Jason Kidd, are a step in the right direction for a franchise whose volatile, multi-coached, multi-chaptered season was a mess.

And now we wait to see what the Knicks think.

by Nick Gallinelli