The Magic of Jeremy Lin

By Blaidd Drwg

Jeremy Lin is a good story – a guy who is a Harvard grad, was cut by 2 teams and languishing at the bottom of the Knicks bench, gets a chance to start and leads the team to a 6 game winning streak where he is averaging 26.8 points per game.

I have a feeling that this is going to take a turn for the worst soon – the Knicks have Mr. Ego himself, Carmello Anthony, currently injured, but expected back soon, not to mention Amare Stoudemire coming back from an injury. Those two guys represent the Knicks 2 leading scorers and represent 38 shot attempts a game between them. They both want the ball. Lin is currently taking 24 shots a game. Something is going to have to give and I have a feeling it is going to be Lin’s shot total. The Knicks are going to need him to be more John Stockton than Michael Jordan in order to keep Melo and Amare happy. The problem is I am not sure that Lin can be Stockton. As a starter, Lin is averaging 8.5 assists and 5.1 turnovers per game. While the assists are fine, the turnovers are scary. The Knicks are already 29th in the league as a team in turnovers per game. While Lin’s sample size is small, the number is a bit disturbing – his turnovers have been 1, 8, 2, 6, 6, and 8. To put it in perspective, he has averaged about 1 more turnover a game than the current league leader, Russell Westbrook.

I really want to see Jeremy Lin do well, but I have a feeling the Knicks are headed for a disgruntled player showdown with Melo, and the guy making 18 million a year is always going to win out over the guy making the league minimum.