I woke up just after nine o’clock yesterday morning and turned my TV onto ESPN as any sports fan would. I tuned into Sportscenter, ESPN’s sports news and highlights program. I saw one of the anchors talking to Ric Bucher, an NBA reporter, about New York Knicks sensation Jeremy Lin. I watched for a couple of minutes before dozing off to sleep. I opened my eyes a few minutes later and saw a different anchor introduce a preview of a one-on-one interview with Lin. They played some of the conversation and I started to get annoyed. I wanted to hear about other players on other teams in other sports.
I was hearing endless talk about a guy who was starting his eighth game for a team that had a losing record for the season. His team lost to the New Orleans Hornets at home on Friday night. The Hornets have only nine wins this entire NBA season. It wasn’t making any sense. Why was this kid getting so much hype by ESPN? What was so special about New York?
They had 15 wins and 16 losses overall and were in 8th place in the Eastern Conference, the last playoff spot available. On Sunday, the Knicks were playing the defending NBA champion Dallas Mavericks. Dallas had a six-game winning streak and a 20-11 record for the season. The Mavericks seemed to play second fiddle in ESPN’s eyes. Dallas was mentioned only when the story turned to how they were going to defend Lin.
From 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. (tip time), ESPN’S Sportscenter turned into a four-hour pre-game show for the Mavericks vs. Knicks game. They showed a panel discussion with its NBA studio analysts reviewing Lin’s past success and predicting future situations. In addition, there was an on-court demonstration illustrating how to defend Lin, led by former defensive star now turned analyst Bruce Bowen. In fact, the network used one of its baseball reporters, Tim Kurkjian, as a double for Lin in the demo. On the left side of the screen, a list showing upcoming stories was displayed constantly which is normal for Sportscenter. However, the time-of-day clock was replaced by a timer counting down to the beginning of the Knicks-Mavericks game. There were numerous shots, too many to count, of Lin practicing before the game.
The game was televised by ABC, which along with by ESPN, is owned by Disney. ABC’s weekly NBA pre-game show, NBA Countdown, should have been titled “The Jeremy Lin Show”. The first five minutes included another discussion about Lin’s play and how will teams like Dallas defend him. At the end of the segment, host Michael Wilbon read an apology issued by ESPN over a headline for an ESPN.com story following Friday’s Knicks game. The story of the Knicks loss was head lined, “A Chink in the Armor”. The word “chink” is a used as a racial slur toward Asians. The editor was fired later in the day.
Seven minutes into the show, the league’s best team, the Miami Heat were mentioned in response to a Twitter question asking if were the team to beat in the NBA. Later, ABC switched to a live preview at Madison Square Garden with play-by-play announcer Mike Tirico. Tirico gave a quick summary of the two teams and then interviewed filmmaker and longtime Knicks fan Spike Lee.
At 12:50, twenty minutes into the thirty-minute program, The Dallas Mavericks were finally featured by themselves as the reigning champions and not Lin or the Knicks opponent. After about a minute of talking about last year’s Finals MVP Dirk Nowitzki, it was back to more shots of Lin. To provide one last insulting touch, the live player introductions of both teams were shown. Except for the NBA Finals, the live announcement of the starting lineups to the crowd are never shown. Usually, the play-by-play announcer will read over the starters to the TV audience long after they are told to the fans in the arena. ABC admit tingly told viewers they would show the player introductions live to show the crowd reaction for New York, especially Lin.
The game had not started, I had no rooting interest beforehand but wanted to root so badly for Dallas. As a fan of the NFL’s Washington Redskins whose biggest rival is the Dallas Cowboys, this was insane. However, that’s what Linsanity was doing. It wasn’t Lin or the Knicks fault. I actually enjoy watching Lin succeed when many people said he would not. I love that the Knicks, one of the NBA’s most historical franchises, are becoming a decent team after years of losing basketball. All I ask is to have this stuff jammed down my throat constantly.
The Dallas-New York game featured fantastic action, incredible unpredictability, terrific game strategy, and a great crowd atmosphere. Lin dribbled to the basket on many occasions where at least two Mavericks defenders stood there like 20-foot high trees hiding the basket. He did a much better job of passing to teammates for open shots. Through the first two quarters, he had six assists and only one turnover. Unfortunately, he had three turnovers in each of the two quarters. Lin made up for it by scoring 28 points and handing out a personal best 14 assists. Meanwhile, Nowitzki put in 34 points for the day showing his unique outside game to compliment his inside presence as a forward.
New York‘s bench, helped by newly-signed J.R. Smith scoring 15 points in his first game of the season and Steve Novak’s four 3-pointers and 14 points, played a huge role in why the Knicks snapped the Mavericks six-game winning streak. It was a great basketball game to watch. There was no need for extra hype just because of one player or one team. The New York Knicks are talked about more now because they have improved a lot in 2 weeks. Their new point guard Jeremy Lin is a big reason for their success. Yes, Lin played college hoops at Ivy-League Harvard even though he had big-time talent. Yes, he was undrafted, and is the first Taiwanese player in NBA history. Should he be treated by the media differently because he is Asian? The answer is no. Lin is one player on one of 30 National Basketball Association teams. The Knicks are the NBA’s representative in New York City and the state of New York. Sports media needs to implore equality by not reporting on certain players and their performances more often due to their race. Everybody is the same.
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