Give Lin A Chance

Today, the NBA released the most recent results of the fan voting for the 2013 All-Star Game to be held in Houston, Texas.  As with past years, there wasn’t a whole lot to be surprised about.  The fact that 34-year-old Kobe Bryant led the voting caused a bit of a stir.  But the rest of the top four was hardly gasp-inducing:  along with Kobe, fellow superstars LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Carmelo Anthony lead the way.  Perennial All-Star Dwyane Wade is another top vote-getter.  But there is actually somewhat of a brewing controversy hidden in the results, and it centers around the category of the Western Conference backcourt.  The top two names are familiar ones: Bryant and Los Angeles Clippers point guard Chris Paul.  But who is that lurking a scant less than fifty-thousand votes behind Paul?  None other than Mr. Linsanity himself, Jeremy Lin of the hometown Houston Rockets.

Those who last paid attention to the NBA in the winter of 2012 when Linsanity ruled the Earth may not be surprised to see Lin’s name placed among the Western Conference elite guards.  After all, the Lin of that era was dropping thirty-eight points against Bryant and the Lakers in Madison Square Garden, and nailing incredible buzzer beaters while making the game look easy.  Unfortunately, the Lin of 2013 is an entirely different animal.   Granted, the young point guard and his new Rockets teammates have managed to pull things together as of late: they’ve won nine of their last twelve, and outscored opponents by an impressive seventeen points a game during a recent five-game winning streak.  But on an individual basis, Lin’s numbers aren’t great:  his Player Efficiency Rating is a career-low 14.5 and his Win Shares per 48 Minutes is only .083, down from career high of .140 last year. 

By contrast, the man currently barely ahead of Lin in the All-Star voting, future Hall-of-Famer Chris Paul, boasts a sterling Win Shares per 48 Minutes of .287 and the fourth-best PER rating in the league at 25.8.  He also recently led the Clippers to a league wide season-high seventeen-game winning streak, and is being mentioned as a potential MVP candidate.  Looking at both numbers and reputation, Chris Paul would seem to be a clear cut choice as an All-Star over Lin.  So why has it been such a close race? And does it even matter?

The answer to the first question is the same reason that Lin became such a phenomenon last year: a combination of a great underdog story and global appeal.  Last year, the world fell in love with Lin because of his unlikely story: an Asian-American player in a league utterly devoid of them, undrafted and eventually signed and discarded by his hometown team, only to eventually find success on the greatest stage in all of basketball. A Hollywood executive couldn’t have dreamed up a better plot.  It didn’t hurt that the Ivy League-educated Lin came off as so humble and unassuming.  It was hard not to fall in love with him.  But while audiences stateside were falling in love with Lin, an overwhelming number of fans internationally were, too.  And therein lays the true strength of the surprising All-Star movement for Mr. Lin.

At the height of Linsanity last year, much was made of the worldwide appeal of Lin (whose parents are of Taiwanese origin).  But it may surprise some people just how widespread (though admittedly short-lived) that appeal was.  Around this time last year, Lin had the top-selling jersey in the entire NBA.   During Linsanity, the CCTV network in China saw viewership increase 39 percent, and NBA.com/China had 43 percent more page views compared to the previous season.   Last year, Lin did not make the All-Star Game, but was hastily added by the NBA to the Rising Stars Challenge game by the NBA.  The results were evident:  Around 2.8 million people watched the event on TNT, the highest number since the 2004 game featuring LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Carmelo Anthony.  In fact, the 2012 game featuring Lin saw a viewership increase of about 27% over that star-studded 2004 matchup.

Obviously, Lin has an incredible amount of supporters both in the U.S. and abroad, particularly China.  In 2013, Lin is not only benefiting from the hometown vote, but new voting policies instituted by the NBA that have made it easier than ever before for international fans to vote.  They can cast their ballot on Twitter and Facebook, and on Chinese social media websites like Sina Weibo and Tencent QQ.   This is obviously a well-thought-out decision by the NBA: globalization of the game has long been a pet project of Commissioner David Stern.  Last year’s All-Star Game was broadcast in 215 countries and territories in 47 languages, and was covered by 1,800 media, including 336 international reporters.

So even if Lin does make the All-Star Game over Paul or another arguably more deserving player, you won’t hear Stern or the NBA complaining: they can probably already hear the sounds of cash registers working overtime at the league offices.  Fans, though, tend to be less concerned about the bottom line, and for many of them the idea of Lin making the roster over a superior player is a travesty.  One blogger goes so far as to suggest that, if Lin attains a starting spot in the All-Star Game, fan voting should no longer determine the starters. 

Unfortunately, fans like that blogger and others who sour at the thought of Jeremy Lin starting for the Western Conference All-Stars have lost sight of the objective of the All-Star Game.  It isn’t to reward the best players.  It never has been.  Did Allen Iverson deserve to start every year he was voted into the game past his prime? Or Yao Ming, who, similar to Lin, received a “bump” in voting each year from his fans in China? The purpose of the All-Star Game is to reward the players who the fans most want to see.  And, in that regard, the votes of fans in China and other countries should count just as much as those of us in the United States.  Our game has truly gone global, and the popularity of Jeremy Lin is one testament to that.  We should welcome his success. 

In any event, even if Lin gets more votes than Paul, the coaches will select Paul as a substitute.  Sure, in that scenario, some potentially worthy West guard like James Harden or Russell Westbrook will be out in the cold as a result, but that’s kind of the point.  It’s an All-Star Game.  That means not everybody gets to play in it.  And at the end of the year, some combination of Paul, Harden, or Westbrook will be voted to an All-NBA Team by the media and Lin will be nowhere to be found.  There’s nothing wrong with that system.   

“Real” NBA fans like to complain about the All-Star Game; how meaningless it is because the players don’t take it seriously or because there’s no defense.  Yet many of those some fans will debate endlessly about which players deserve to make the cut, and who was snubbed after the fact.  Then the day after the game, like clockwork, the entire affair is forgotten.  Think about it.  How many specific All-Star Games or moments do you actually remember? I’m willing to bet less than a handful.  When we discuss the careers of great players like Michael Jordan, we always mention the MVP awards, or the championships.  But who remembers how many All-Star Games a player made? Kevin McHale made seven All-Star teams in his career.  Vince Carter made eight.  Would anyone argue that Vince Carter had a better career than 3-time NBA Champion McHale? Of course not.

The NBA All-Star game is little more than a spectacle; a midseason distraction and opportunity to give players a much-needed rest.  Jeremy Lin is a young, exciting athlete whose style of play is well-suited to the All-Star Game.   Veterans like Tim Duncan are practically begging to be left out of the festivities while, for a young player like Lin, making the team would likely be the culmination of a lifetime dream.  Fans who would deny him that opportunity, and his supporters the chance to see him play, are just being asinine.