February 12^th – February 18^th

-A Linsane amount of turnovers: As Linsanity dredges into its third week of existence, Jeremy Lin’s production hasn’t dipped. Though the Knicks finally lost their first game with Lin at the helm, to New Orleans of all teams, Lin still poured in 26 points. But even before the loss, now that analysts have had a chance to inspect Lin’s performances with the clarity of a bigger sample size, much is being made over Lin’s high number of turnovers. Because TOs are such an obvious statistic to Lin’s detriment, every statement about him is qualified with how “careless he is with the ball.” In his eight starts, Lin has piled up 46 TOs (5.75 per game). To give some context, the NBA leader in TOs for the season is Russell Westbrook, averaging 4.3 TOs per game. Lin has already broken the NBA turnover record for a five game span with 35 (7 TOs per game). While this rate of turning the ball over is incredibly high, I can’t help but see it as a cop-out for those looking to understand the rise of Jeremy Lin. Most people do not want to just crown Jeremy Lin king of the basketball multi-verse, which is a fair enough motivation, and in the mean time, the TOs are a good point to argue Lin down from seeming superhuman. How good can he really be if he turns the ball over that frequently? For starters, one must understand why a turnover is a bad thing: because it eliminates the chance of creating a shot opportunity. But not all TOs are the same. Taking a 24-second violation is not as costly as losing the ball in the backcourt, leading to an easy bucket, for instance. TOs can’t be judged without context. In the grand scheme of things, the team that shoots the most will win the majority of the time. The quality of your shots and the quality of the people taking those shots obviously factors into the end result, but it doesn’t take a genius to notice there is a corollary between the team that takes the most shots in a game and team wins. In fact, if one wanted to, you could actually calculate the number of shots you’d need to take in a game to win (assuming your team is worse and will shoot a lower percentage.) For a quick example, if your team is an underdog and will shoot 10% worse than the opponent, and your opponent will shoot 70 shots in a game, holding three-pointers and free throws as basically equal, it is easy math to figure out how many more shots you will need to take to win the game (in this instance, 18 more, for a game total of 88). Basketball does not exist in a tiny vacuum where a team could consciously decide to do something like this, as the struggle of the game is a balancing act: you simply try to do more good things than bad things, and the team that accomplishes this goal will likely win. So, turnovers are costly because they cost you shot opportunities, but in the whole equation, if you are doing enough things to compensate for those turnovers, the net result is positive. And there is plenty of evidence to suggest Lin’s turnovers don’t really matter all that much. For one thing, the ball is in Lin’s hands the VAST majority of the time. The longer the ball is in your hands, the more turnovers you will have. And Lin is averaging 38 minutes per game. On the court for that long, with that many plays depending on you, turnovers are going to be increased. The style of the Knick’s offense doesn’t help either, as they seem to run nothing but pick and rolls. There is no continuity to the offense that allows for safe side to side passes and offensive opportunities opening up due to motion. Rather, every opportunity the Knicks get is dependant on Lin’s ability to get into the paint and create for himself or a teammate. These situations are much riskier and more volatile, statistics-wise, and it should be no surprise that a fair number of them end in turnovers. And while the amount of turnovers over this 8-game period has been staggering, record-setting even, he is doing plenty to offset them. His 15 steals over that time directly negate 15 of the turnovers. His points and assists are evidence that he creates good opportunities far more than he gives the ball away. Also, I’d be leery of the things Lin would have to do to lessen his turnovers. He would have to be more cautious and not go flying into the lane with reckless abandon. For some parts of his game, this is good advice (specifically that he should stop getting caught in the air, looking to make a pass out of desperation). But that reckless abandon is also what makes him a dynamic, effective player. Playing with the caution necessary to lower the amount of turnovers may have a negative net result, as it may hinder his aggressiveness. There is nothing traditional about Lin’s game or background. He shouldn’t try to start fitting into some statistically-acceptable mindset because of a few turnovers. The Knicks are 7-1 with him starting. That’s really all that matters.

-Raymond Felton turns to his mother (Feb 16^th): Following a loss to the Clippers, Portland guard Raymond Felton wasn’t feeling the love from his coach, Nate McMillan. Felton said, “I know I'm struggling, but it's hard to perform the way you know how when you know they don't have confidence in you. Never in my days playing basketball, have I felt like a coach wasn't confident in my abilities. It's hard to play knowing that. Tonight was one of those nights where it was hard to get into the game knowing every mistake I made would be magnified. It's to the point where the only person I could turn to was my mom.” Struggling isn’t even the word for what Felton has done this season. More like pathetic. Against the Clippers that night, Felton went 0-7 from the field with 5 TOs. For the season, he’s shooting a miserable 36% from the field and 21% from behind the arc. He’s averaging 7 points less than last year, when he had his breakout year with the Knicks and Nuggets. Apparently, Felton attributes his poor performance to his coach’s lack of confidence in him. And if he felt strongly enough about this that he needed to go to the media, there may be some truth in it. But I know a source of greater truth: the publicly tended garden that is the internet. There, truth is filtered and honed by billions of people, to the point that, if the internet has figured something out, it must be true. I'm not talking about rumor mills or gossip sites, I'm talking about highly-evidenced facts that exist all over the web. And go ahead, type “Raymond Felton” into your Google browser. The fourth or fifth suggested search is “Raymond Felton Fat.” Though Felton is listed at 205 pounds, and has always been a thick-shouldered, beefy guy (who always wore a tee-shirt underneath his jersey to hide some of his bulk), he was an obvious victim of the NBA lockout. With no coaches or trainers to stay on him, he gained 20-30 pounds, I'd estimate. Some of that has already melted away with the rigors of the condensed season, but attributing his lack of success to Nate McMillan’s coaching is a little ridiculous, seeing as though he came into the season looking like a bloated corpse. It’s usually unfair to be critical of people for gaining weight, but Felton is a professional athlete. His job performance directly requires him to take care of his body. He may have confidence issues that stem from being so badly out of shape at the start of the season, but deflecting that onto your coach isn’t fair. I’d suggest that Felton find a mirror and take a good long look at himself before he throws his coach under the bus. On second thought, maybe he should find a scale.

Lin’s “Chink in the Armor” (Feb 17^th): After Lin’s first loss as a starter, ESPN.com wondered aloud whether Linsanity was about to be derailed. In a poor choice of words, the headline read, “Chink in the Armor.” For most of the common world, so saturated with knowledge of racial dynamics and epithets, the reference to “Chink” could only be interpreted as a slur against Lin’s Asian ancestry. ESPN quickly apologized for the headline and fired the person responsible for the mistake. Then again, one has to wonder how intentional the slur was. An oversight? Absolutely. But I find it hard to believe a man risked his job and lifestyle to intentionally throw a slur at Jeremy Lin, who has aroused no hatred at all, on a website that is the GO-TO spot for sports information. I’d say it’s probable that writing headlines for the ESPN website was something of a dream job for the man, who hasn’t been named in any of the statements by ESPN. Why would he risk all that for one little racial pun? I’d say it’s more likely that the man didn’t notice the racial implications at all. As many subsequent articles have pointed out, “Chink in the Armor” is a common phrase used in sports and very apt in describing Lin (owing to the turnover issue which we have already covered). Further, I found an article on “The Oracle” website (based out of the University of South Florida) that notes the racism in disallowing headlines to people of a certain race, “Media outlets deciding that, because Lin is Asian, he therefore does not have the capacity to be described using a commonly used phrase is the real racism.” I couldn’t have said it any better. The headline maker’s ignorance of the double meaning of “Chink” is proof that he ISN’T RACIST. Only a racist filters everything through race. ESPN took the safe route and apologized for the incident, not wanting to look naïve. But the braver route would have been to not apologize and stand behind the headline writer, refusing to submit to some American taboo against using words with explicit double meanings or potential racial undertones. The media, to a large extent, cannot control how the reader will process the information it produces. The fact that everyone’s first instinct was to cry foul and scream, “HE CALLED LIN A CHINK!”, reveals more about our country’s obsession with racial divisions than it does about a website writer making a headline to describe Jeremy Lin’s first loss as a starter. And that’s Jeremy Lin the basketball player, not the Asian-American.