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Linball

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Boom_70, Feb 10, 2012.

  1. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    My freshman year of college, my next door neighbor was a kid from Albany, Will Foley. He was 6' 9" Center on the basketball team. He wasn't great, but he was ok, and went on to play for the Washington Generals.

    But one game, he ate up Rony Seikaly. It was great. He dominated a future NBA star.

    Lin dominated an NBA game at Madison Square Garden, against Kobe Bryant and the LA Lakers. For a first round draft choice, this would be a big deal. For an undrafted guy out of Harvard, who's been cut twice, had a few stints in the D-League, and has been sleeping on his brother's couch, it's an unbelievable story.

    And, in a city with a huge Asian-American population, it's a great thing for the NBA and the Knicks too.

    This is a great story. Don't over think it. He doesn't need to become a Hall of Famer to validate what he's already done. he's already accomplished a lot. Just being on the roster long enough to earn a pro-rated $600,000 a year salary is life changing for the guy.

    If he earns one contract as a result of his play this year, he'll be set up for life, and his parents might stop giving him shit for not becoming a doctor or engineer.
     
  2. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    By the time the Knicks play their next game at MSG, more than 50% of the fans who show up wearing a jersey will be wearing a Lin jersey.
     
  3. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    Good take YF -- the only thing I would add is don't buy the hype of his parents wanting a doctor or engineer. They pushed him pretty hard in basketball and would have taken a DI scholarship offer over the Harvard education had one been offered.
     
  4. Chef2

    Chef2 Well-Known Member

    This.

    A thousand times this.
     
  5. Stoney

    Stoney Well-Known Member

    Far more impressive than his stats is that he's led the dead in the water Knicks to four straight wins WITHOUT Carmelo and Stoudamire. Something odd's going on when a team clearly plays better without its two biggest stars than with them.

    From reading about this kid's history, it sounds like he's always been a far better player than he was getting credit for from the "talent evaluators" and, quite frankly, I can't help but wonder if his race had something to do with the way he's been chronically underranked. He led his HS team to a 32-1 record, won the state championship, was named California Player of the Year--yet he did not get a single scholarship offer from a major conference school. He then had just a tremendous career at Harvard, re-wrote the school's record book, led that school back to basketball relevance for the first time in decades, yet got completely snubbed when the NBA draft rolled around.
     
  6. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    Oh, that was mostly a joke. From what I've read his parents have been supportive of his goal/dream to play basketball.
     
  7. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    Supportive, maybe even psychotic.

    The part about sleeping on his brother's couch makes the whole story.
     
  8. BrianGriffin

    BrianGriffin Active Member

    I don't get Carmelo. He won a national championship in college. I thought, for the most part, Denver was functional with him there. Now, he's Allen Iverson.

    This isn't a critique of the criticism. I do think this is a Carmelo problem.
     
  9. Azrael

    Azrael Well-Known Member

    I think it's pretty clear you don't actually know what the word means.
     
  10. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    What a putz!
     
  11. Azrael

    Azrael Well-Known Member

    Don't kibbitz.
     
  12. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    I blame Lala.
     
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