In 1925, the month of May was brutal on the New York Yankees, terrible enough to merit a change, one that was seen as perhaps a temporary fix rather than a permanent solution. The switch was the benching of Wally Pip in favor of a young player that he clamored for the team to sign, one Lou Gehrig. Pipp would never return to the Yankees lineup, and wound up getting traded to the Cincinnati Reds the following year. Gehrig went straight into the Hall of Fame with a career batting average of .340 and 493 home runs.
87 years later, the city of New York may be on to something big yet again if history has anything to do with current events. This time it is not the Yankees, but the city’s basketball franchise, the Knicks. The team has found a gold mine with 23-year old guard Jeremy Lin, who already is with his third franchise in two seasons.
Lin has been an underdog his whole career beginning back in high school when he could not secure a scholarship from his dream school UCLA, or from local university Stanford. Instead, he was guaranteed a spot on two Ivy league teams: Harvard and Brown. Brown would not intensify their recruitment of Lin the way Harvard did. The hard work would pay off as they wound up signing what would become their top recruit after witnessing Jeremy lead his Palo Alto high school to an upset victory over national-power Mater Dei.
At Harvard, Lin saw his scoring average increase with each season, beginning with a 4.8 scoring average and graduating with 16.4 points per game.
As many know, Lin was not drafted, instead signing with the Golden State Warriors. Still, playing time was limited as the Warriors are pretty well stacked in the backcourt, with Monta Ellis and Stephen Curry leading the charge. Lin did get his share of playing time, seeing 9.8 minutes per contest, which is actually more than was to be expected given that he was undrafted. He averaged 2.6 points per game. Lin was quite popular within the Warrior organization, but was waived on December 9, 2011 to free up salary cap space in order to make an offer to free agent center DeAndre Jordan. Lin was due to make $800,000, which would have become fully guaranteed on February 10, 2012. According to The San Francisco Chronicle, Lin would have had trouble beating out rookie guard Charles Jenkins to make the team anyways.
Lin was claimed on waivers by the Houston Rockets three days later, but would remain on the team for only 12 days before getting released yet again because of salary cap issues. The extra space was used to sign center Samuel Dalembert. Three days later, on the 27th, the New York Knicks made the call to claim Lin off of waivers and slot him as a backup to guards Toney Douglas and Mike Bibby after starter Iman Shumpert went down to an injury.
Lin’s first game with New York was in all places, Oakland, against the Warriors. His former fanbase gave him a very warm welcome. He saw just one minute of action and did not score as the Knicks were defeated.
In 29 games for the Warriors, he scored 76 points. What was to come for this kid was sorely unexpected by anybody in all of basketball. On February 4, 2012, six days before he would have been guaranteed his full contract by the Warriors, Lin started for the Knicks, where in 36 minutes of a victory, he scored 25 points, nearly a third of what was credited to him all of last season. Two nights later against the Jazz he scored 28 points. Then, he would follow that up with 23 points in Washington. Still, he was questioned. But, would answer those questions rather quickly against Kobe Bryant and the Lakers, who he torched for 38 points. Finally, in his most recent game, Lin scored 20 points in Minnesota against the Timberwolves. All five games that he has started in have resulted in victories.
Lin has scored 134 points in these first five starts, an NBA record for a player’s first five NBA starts. He has 21 rebounds and 40 assists in the time-frame. Many readers might be thinking that they have seen this time and time again, but this article is unique in the fact that Lin is not being compared to the other players that were selected ahead of him (at least through their last five games to make a comparison).
Curry is a natural scorer, but even he hails in comparison to Lin. Curry has scored 106 points in the five-game span. He grabbed 21 rebounds and dished 43 assists.
Kyle Lowry of the Houston Rockets has scored 80 points in guiding his team to a 3-2 record. He adds 13 rebounds and 32 assists.
It gives an idea of where Lin is at right now. Both teams passed on Lin, one for a center that never came, and the other for a player losing his minutes.
Is Lin the next Lou Gehrig? That is doubtful, but anything is possible. Lots will be determined tonight as Amar’e Stoudemire makes his return for the Knicks. In two weeks, the team will also return Carmelo Anthony, another big determinant in the ever-developing tale of Jeremy Lin.