Poor Man's Commish » overseas

Rafe Bartholomew on Filipino/Pinoy hoops

poormanscommish — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 21:57:05 +0000

Do you know how popular basketball is in the Philippines? We’ve had blogposts about three Dream League tournament MVPs ending up on the same roster in the PBA, but aside from references like that, do you really know how popular basketball is in “the PI”? Someone very qualified is here to give you the proper context.

His name is Rafe Bartholomew and he’s coming out with a book next month that talks about this very thing: “Pacific Rims: Beermen Ballin’ in Flip-Flops and the Philippines’ Unlikely Love Affair with Basketball”.

Through my homies at GSoM, I’m happy to say that I’m getting an advanced copy of the book to review. I’ll be in talks with the publicist on how to get the book pushed through the Dream League community (10,000 Asian-American rec ballers strong!).

Inspiration for this blogpost goes to HoopsHype, which tweeted they were shocked to find Manila ranking 5th in total number of hits in the world on their site, after mega-metros NY, LA, Chicago, and Toronto of North America.

Here’s a blogpost on Free Darko by Bartholomew, where you can find the awesome photo of a Filipino kid dunking on a wooden backboard in a rural area in the Philippines: http://freedarko.blogspot.com/2010/02/fd-guest-lecture-where-magaling-happens.html

Here’s a recent interview with Bartholomew: In the Bullpen

Here’s the full text of the press release, as forwarded to me by GSoM…

IN THE PHILIPPINES, AUTHOR RAFE BARTHOLOMEW WAS IN SEARCH OF
A CULTURAL PHENOMENON…
A NATION’S FIERCE DEVOTION TO THE GAME OF BASKETBALL.

HE FOUND THE SOUL OF THE GAME.

PACIFIC RIMS
BEERMEN BALLIN’ IN FLIP-FLOPS
AND THE PHILIPPINES’ UNLIKELY LOVE AFFAIR WITH BASKETBALL

They play on earthen courts. Hoops are nailed to coconut trees. Backboards are made out of the rusted hoods of old cars. Rims sport hand-woven nets. But on these often primitive courts there is an elevated level of skill and artistry. Here, body-twisting, triple-clutching hang-time is used for sublime “circus” shots that nearly every player seems capable of.

This is basketball in the Philippines.

The Philippines. A politically unhinged land with no international reputation for basketball. Somehow the sport is a cultural force. It’s not only a pastime, it’s a passion. Hoops are everywhere. The game is a part of everyday life and brings joy to almost everyone. There simply is no other game.

The ball doesn’t bounce high off the dirt, but the Filipino version of the sport is a fast-paced, brutal ballet in flip-flops. When Rafe Bartholomew read about the fierce Filipino infatuation with basketball he needed to witness it for himself. Bartholomew—a Fulbright scholar, full-court fanatic and self-proclaimed hoops savant—left for the Philippines as a trailblazing basketball anthropologist.

The result of his journey is an intriguing cross-cultural study of an improbable hoops nation, “PACIFIC RIMS: Beermen Ballin’ in Flip-Flops and the Philippines’ Unlikely Love Affair with Basketball” (New American Library). Stretching a Fulbright stipend meant for one year to three, Bartholomew blends into the culture as much as a relatively tall Caucasian man can in the Philippines. He splits his time between pick-up games and documenting the modest, but inspiring hoop dreams occurring around him.

Could forty million undeniably short men with an average height five-foot-five be so obsessed with the big man’s game that is basketball? Absolutely. Basketball has been the country’s dominant team game since the 1930s and somewhere along the line Filipinos developed a strong emotional bond. From day one, it was obvious to Bartholomew that the Filipino fanaticism for the sport was deeply ingrained.

In PACIFIC RIMS, Bartholomew also follows the nation’s exceedingly popular professional league. Playing from night to night in sweltering heat and in front of truly frothy fans, the players in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) are the icons of the country. In the old days, basketball in the Philippines was the equivalent of a street fight in shorts. But today, the pro game is an echo of the American game with imported superstars, contract negotiations, advertising revenue, playoff runs and a desire for good team chemistry. And with teams like the Talk-N-Text Phone Pals, the Purefoods Chunkee Giants, the San Miguel Beermen, Purefoods Tender Juicy Giants, and the Great Taste Coffeemakers, there is no denying the sport’s marketability. In the arenas, nuns share aisles with television starlets. At home, families end their evenings with PBA doubleheaders. Everyone watches.

PACIFIC RIMS also chronicles
* The ascent of basketball as Filipinos learned to play before the rest of the world.
* How basketball in the postwar years became a way for the Philippines’ to reassert their worthiness as a nation.
* Why basketball is more popular than soccer in the Philippines.
* How longtime dictator Ferdinand Marcos used his sponsorship of the game as a basketball-for-votes quid pro quo.
* The life and trials of expat international ball.
* The Filipino career of NBA washout Billy Ray Bates—one of the greatest doomed tragic heroes in the history of the sport.
* The ballplayers—homegrown and imported—who have become legends.
* The “circus” shots used in Filipino roundball (e.g. the yo-yo shot, armpit shot, etc.)
* The basketball court’s all-purpose role in rural life in the Philippines.
* The newest Filipino basketball sensation: midgets vs. transvestites. Colloquially called “skirts vs. squirts”. Seriously.
* How Rafe—a head taller than most Filipinos—immersed himself into Filipino culture.

With an odd and oddly appealing cast of characters, PACIFIC RIMS is a swashbuckling tale of ferocious fandom, fast-paced action, sprain-defying leaps in flip-flops, beloved rituals of mass humiliation, and transcendent moments with generous helpings of derring-do.

PACIFIC RIMS is basketball poetry and a chronicle of one of the sincerest expressions of the love of sport that you have ever read. In the Philippines, Rafe Bartholomew seems to have found the very soul of the game.

PACIFIC RIMS: Beermen Ballin’ in Flip-Flops and the Philippines’ Unlikely Love Affair with Basketball
Author: Rafe Bartholomew
Publisher: New American Library
Format: Hardcover; 352 pages; Retail Price: $24.95
ISBN-13: 978-0-4512-2999-1
Publication Date: June 2010You might also like:

Gunnin’ for that NBA pg spot: Vassilis Spanoulis

poormanscommish — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 22:03:11 +0000

This year’s point guard crop of draftees is not that deep and Jeremy Lin, Bay Area native and Asian baller, won’t have as much competition as last year’s 16 point guards selected, but available roster spots at pg on NBA teams are just that: available roster spots (read: not a whole lof of them left).

I found one more to add to the complications: Vassilis Spanoulis. And he’s been tagged as the best — as in, #1 — free agent prospect for this summer out of the Euroleague.

So here’s the dilemma with pg roster spots, assuming an NBA team has them: sign a more experienced, expensive free agent like Spanoulis (who apparently has the nickname “Kill Bill”), or draft an unproven rookie straight out of the NCAA, but save beaucoup bucks?

EXCERPT: “Kill Bill is as smart, tough, and competitive as any player in the world. He is a pure winner and a natural leader. He can lead a team as the primary option from either back court position on offense and he is an excellent defender.

He should not be judged on his lone NBA year with the Houston Rockets, as he obviously did not get a fair chance from Jeff Van Gundy. He is clearly a superior player to the likes of Rafer Alston, Luther Head, and John Lucas III, whom were ahead of him on Van Gundy’s depth chart, and pretty much every NBA scout you talk to will state as much. Potential NBA starting point guard or 6th man.

NBA Scout Assessment: An NBA scout said this of Spanoulis, ‘Spanoulis has no fear on the basketball court. He is as confident as any player there is. In my opinion he can start in any team in the NBA.’”

Read the full article at: talkbasket.net/blogs/top-10-euroleague-free-agent-nba-prospects-2954.html

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Chinese beatdowns

poormanscommish — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 18:04:28 +0000

Charles Gaines clocking Du Feng leads off this installment of 3pt Play, where things tend to happen in threes. Exhibit A: Gaines, who once played for the San Antonio Spurs, knocks out Du in the Chinese Basketball Association. Then we have Exhibits B and C (non-basketball-related): 59-year-old Tian-Sheng Yu and his 27-year-old son Cheng Yu getting beat up in broad daylight in downtown Oakland…

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/20/BA301D16JO.DTL

And if you think Exhibit B and C should be lumped into just Exhibit B, then consider the attacks on San Francisco’s Muni buses not too long ago…

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_francisco&id=7364771

Yes, I’m sure there are Chinese or Asian people getting beat up all the time all over the world as we speak, but I’m just sayin’. All in a matter of days, all reaching headlines. Enough is enough.

For the hoopsters, here’s Exhibit A in more detail:

“The synopsis: in the closing moments of Game 2 of the Chinese Basketball Association finals on Sunday, Guangdong’s Du Feng gets tangled underneath the basket with Xinjiang’s Gaines, a Southern Mississippi standout in the early naughts who was briefly on the San Antonio Spurs’ roster. Du appears to butt heads with Gaines; Gaines responds by roundhousing Du. Ten-count, commence.”

Thanks for the heads-up on Gaines/Du from SlamOnline writer Daniel Edward Rosen.

Read the whole article at: Heart of Beijing: Charles Gaines KOs Chinese basketball playerYou might also like:

From deity to defeated: Coast-to-coast to see Jeremy Lin (4/4)

poormanscommish — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 21:25:05 +0000

Jeremy Lin, pre-game intros, family.

NOTE: This is Part 4 of a four-part series of blogposts. Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 were published in the three days prior. I re-titled this post because I felt it was the most interesting of the four.

From deity to defeated

After Friday night’s win over Columbia, there were hundreds of fans lined up to meet Jeremy Lin, to get autographs and take pictures. He was very accommodating. He was a hero. I could only shake my head and smile in astonishment.

Even the Santa Clara post-game hadn’t been that frenzied, at least from my vantage point, although I did overhear his teammate mentioning autograph-seekers outside the team bus. I think the fans were not found in droves on the Leavey Center floor after the Santa Clara game primarily because of the long post-game press conference. The scene at Leavey ended up being picture-taking sessions mostly with family and extended family, and reconnecting with long-lost former teammates and even former opponents, such as Anthony Goods of Stanford fame, who played against Jeremy in the first home-coming three years prior.

Even as his friend, after the Columbia game it was nearly impossible to navigate the waters just to say hello. At one point, after autographing a sign and some t-shirts, Jeremy was rescued by Coach Tommy Amaker, who called him over from about ten yards away to take pictures with Jeremy’s relatives. Even his flat-mate Cheng Ho (running back for Harvard football team) told Jeremy rather abruptly, “Eh, you’re too popular. I’ll just see you later.”

The intimate setting at Columbia made it quite a sight to see. Here he was, a bonafide celebrity athlete.

By contrast and true to enemy territory form, I saw zero autograph-seekers after the Cornell game.

Jeremy came out of the locker room with a decidedly frustrated look on his face. He had a larger support group on this night. Adding to the Lin “posse” (I’m trying to be facetious!) was his dad, his two brothers and, I presume, a few cousins. The fact that the Columbia game was on a school/work night probably had something to do with their absences the night before.

His mom rushed to him the moment he appeared, inviting a hug to try and take away the agony of the blow-out loss to a crucial opponent. If my personal life is any comparison, and if I remember correctly, nary a mom’s affection was going to change that torturous feeling for a young adult that lasts for about four hours immediately following a loss. As such, Jeremy was predictably stoic.

I could see him pointing at the other end of the court and explaining something to his mom, which I speculate had to do with the exasperation of the two “phantom” (i.e., “ticky-tack”, or for the non-basketball readers: they shouldn’t have been called) fouls called on him in the second half. The 4th foul sent him to the bench, on the brink of disqualification and unable to help his teammates spark a comeback — not that it would’ve made a difference against the ferocious Cornell team that showed up that night.

Still, perhaps ingrained in the Lin DNA, mom attempted another hug or two (which Jeremy did oblige), seeing that her son was so bothered by the huge disappointment of the loss. Eventually, Jeremy cracked a smile as one of his cousins said something, but then, true to a baller’s heart, the gravity of what just took place on the court re-plagued his mind and the frustration was back on his face not long thereafter.

Back at Santa Clara, his dad had come up to me and said he was very thankful for sharing the perhaps unnoticed qualities that Jeremy brings to a team, both on my blog and as a contributor to GoldenStateOfMind.com. Jeremy’s dad said that I saw things most people don’t see with Jeremy’s game. Then he paid me the ultimate compliment: “I read every word, every word.”

After the Cornell game, I hoped that we could talk shop again and I was grateful when Jeremy’s dad again came by and wanted to know what I thought of the game. I pretty much gave him the condensed version of the recap I wrote in Part 2, and we agreed on a lot of points, giving sort of our first-take analysis, as Silicon Valley engineers do. But I told him that, despite the embarrassing outcome, I was proud of his son, how courageously he played in the second half, fearlessly attacking on offense and meeting 7-footer Jeff Foote at the rim on numerous occasions, against insurmountable odds.
_

Jeremy getting taped before the game.

Finally, I said hello and goodbye to Jeremy. I told him to stay strong, that nothing’s really changed, in reference to their quest for the Ivy League title (it’s still, in essence, a 3-game series against Cornell, although Harvard now has to beat Cornell twice in a row: once in the remaining regular season matchup and, if upset losses to any other teams are avoided, one more time in what would be an Ivy League championship one-game playoff).

Then Jeremy said what I knew he would say: “Thanks for coming. Sorry.”

I told him not to be sorry, that he never had to apologize for a loss.

You apologize when, for whatever reason, you didn’t or couldn’t give it your all. Or when you didn’t practice something you should have. You apologize if you got frustrated at a teammate and snapped at him (that’d be me snapping at my teammates, as those of you who know my potentially fiery personality on the court can attest, but not Jeremy). But you don’t have to apologize when you gave everything you had, pulled nearly every trick out of the bag, and you or your team just wasn’t good enough that night.

At that point I caught a glimpse of Jeremy’s mom, who was a little teary-eyed. I think it was because she knew we all cared for Jeremy a great deal, and she appreciated that, and she also knew that losing and being disappointed that the outcome did not happen as we may have envisioned it, was a painful part of competition.

I think there was some element of Jeremy feeling he might have let his fans down. Well, as an eyewitness, I can convey to all of you Jeremy Lin fans, he and Harvard may have lost that night, but the way he played that second half practically one-on-five, with the fifth being seven feet tall, me watching this from just eight rows back, how he took several hits (the hard foul and the slap that wasn’t called by the ref) and kept fighting, as an Asian-American, you can be proud of Jeremy even in a 36-point defeat.

The final score doesn’t show this. The boxscore doesn’t show this. The play-by-play transcript probably doesn’t even reveal it. I don’t even think the average basketball fan can appreciate it. But as someone who has watched adult men play competitive basketball, up close, for more than 10,000 hours in the last two decades, most of it from the last seven years since Dream League’s inception, as a basketball aficionado, a former player, a coach who has been through it all in countless tournaments, what I saw from Jeremy in the second half against Cornell — and this has nothing to do with being Asian-American — that’s a guy I want on my team.

And I wouldn’t have traded witnessing Jeremy and his mom, for any of Jeremy’s previous wins, dunks, buzzer-beaters, or fabulous plays. I mean, I would trade it, because as a baller I’d rather take the win, of course. But I sure have a greater appreciation of Jeremy’s mom and family and their relationship with him, and this memory will be ingrained with me just as the wins, dunks, buzzer-beaters, and fabulous plays will.

Not that other basketball players’ families aren’t the same. I don’t mean to prop up Jeremy as someone who takes responsibility for a loss more-so than any other elite competitor. Nor his mom as a better mom than other basketball players’ moms.

But some star players don’t necessarily give their heart and soul to the team, or they look to blame someone or something else for a loss. On the other hand, this particular star player carries a loss with him and takes responsibility for the many people, from family to friends to colleagues to nameless supporters, who care about him. And his family respects that and feels the same. With Jeremy, you will never get any drama whatsoever after a loss.

Out of respect for the privacy of the Lin family, I internally debated whether or not to post what I saw with Jeremy and his mom, but I think it was a tidbit that needed to be told. This may be the wrong metaphor, but Batman wouldn’t be interesting without Bruce Wayne. When the warehouse blew up and took Rachel Dawes with it, it was Wayne’s anguish and feeling of responsibility, to not just certain individuals but also people in general, that made Batman more human. (To the inevitable detractors lurking out there: I know, I know, a comparison to the Dark Knight is a bit much, but you get my drift. Geez, let a man make a point.)

This past weekend, I got to see the hero vanquish his opponents and achieve the status of a deity, and the next day I witnessed him defeated and dealing with a major emotional setback at the hands of an archrival.

And yet, in both instances, he was considerate of someone else.

Throughout my travels watching adults play basketball, be it the NBA, the NCAA, or at any level of any of my amateur leagues — and I say this even if, in a myopic way, only relative to the other players on any given court — I’d have to think real hard to remember someone as young as him who possessed such skill, stamina, determination, leadership, and MATURITY.

Tonight, Harvard picks itself up after the knockout punch by Cornell, to face Princeton at home. Tomorrow, they face Penn. They will have a rematch against Cornell on Fri 2/19.You might also like:

There and back again: Coast-to-coast to see Jeremy Lin (3/4)

poormanscommish — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:48:04 +0000

Jeremy Lin is not afraid to attack the rim (via Pablo Torre via SI, click for Pablo's blog).

NOTE: This is Part 3 of 4. Part 1 and Part 2 were posted in the past two days. Part 4 will post tomorrow.

Back to that vaunted Cornell team

Unfortunately as it relates to competing against a team like Cornell, Harvard doesn’t and didn’t have anyone else with the smallish-stocky or longish-quick blueprint — see the last few paragraphs of the previous post — against Cornell. Nor did they have anyone posing a threat down low (usually this would be Keith Wright or Kyle Casey), or nailing shots outside (Oliver McNally, Christian Webster, Dee Giger, or Andrew Van Nest).

The Cornell defense was just too intense and smothering. They can be that way and scramble-and-gamble on the defensive perimeter because Jeff Foote can protect the rim. It’s like in high school when your varsity squad scrimmaged the JV kids. The varsity guys would risk — and most likely win — every overplay on the perimeter, knowing that they had a physically superior team.

Likewise, on offense they can run a series of picks up top but still with Foote planted down low. This creates a quite simple but effective attack of (a) dumping it to Foote or (b) setting enough perimeter picks combined with looks at Foote, that eventually a Cornell outside threat will get the ball. That night, it was John Jaques who answered the call, hitting trey after trey.

Cornell also has a solid ballhandler in Louis Dale, a diminutive point guard who was hitting his opportunistic shots and cutting up Harvard’s confused man-to-man. Dale often looked like Chris Paul out there, but his numbers won’t attract a lot of NBA scouts. This is because Dale has sacrificed his game for the success of the program. Bobby Knight would love this kid.

Sometimes that’s what happens in the dynamics between the NCAA and NBA. I’ve often called it a “holy war”, although there are certainly guys on both sides of the fence. In this context of Cornell, my point is this: Dale is probably not on any NBA scout’s radar (and Ryan Wittman may be only because of his dad, Randy Wittman of Minnesota Timberwolves fame). Dale doesn’t have the numbers to justify a scout’s time. His numbers have actually decreased as the team around him has gotten better. As a result, his impending pro career will start with him very, very far from the pole position. That is the price he pays for being on a great team and winning with a storied program like Cornell. A great many future pro basketball prospects go through these dynamics every year. It’s one of the many profound things I’ve learned while following the career of Jeremy Lin.

So, Cornell’s a pretty scary, balanced team. Even if Harvard pulls off the Ivy miracle (i.e., beats Cornell in a few weeks, then beats them again in a one-game playoff as a tiebreaker to decide the conference champion), I think Cornell gets an at-large bid and wins the opening round of the NCAA Tournament, no matter who they play.

If I were a European billionaire, I’d consider starting a new franchise in some Euroleague B division and drafting all four starting Cornell seniors. With a few more professional pieces, you’ve got a solid team with incredible chemistry that could last for years. Of course, Wittman and Foote need to pursue the NBA, so even if I were a European magnate, keeping this team together past Cornell graduation would be impossible.

It should come as no surprise that all five Cornell starters scored in double-figures against Harvard. They made Harvard blink, early, and strangled them from there.

Jeremy Lin, warrior

The other thing that needs to be put out there in terms of Jeremy is that it’s his defense that sparks his offense.

It’s almost appalling that we tend to consistently overlook this, isn’t it? But time and time again, defense is the foundation of the Jeremy Lin Show.

That night, Cornell’s bulletproof offense, with Foote anchoring the attack, afforded Jeremy few opportunities to spark his offense. From that perspective, Jeremy was really amazing as he tried to create something out of nothing from the halfcourt set in the second half.

Jeremy wound up scoring 15 of his 19 points against Cornell in the final twenty minutes, courageously penetrating into the teeth of Cornell’s defense which was anchored by “Big Foote” and a Charles Oakley-esque bruiser teammate (6′5″ 222-lb Adam Wire) who made sure Jeremy felt pain when hard-fouled.

There was even one play where Foote seemed to have slapped Jeremy’s wrist as Jeremy was challenging for a layup, but there was no call, to the dismay of us thirty or so fans tucked in behind Harvard’s bench who clearly heard the slap.

To jeering taunts of “over-rated” from the devout Cornell crowd, Jeremy managed to hit 7 of 8 free throws, while continuing his astonishing shooting percentage from the field at 6-for-9.

We Harvard fans were surrounded by elder Cornell alumnae and even they were appreciative of Jeremy’s play in the second half, nodding in agreement that his “and-one” was a good move, or that his spin on the right baseline to split two Cornell defenders, stopped by a foul, was impressive.

I know, he had 8 turnovers. I understand, that’s not a good stat to have. But I’ve seen other NBA hopefuls rack up turnovers as well. More on this later, as I will write an in-depth study of Jeremy’s potential draft peers, but I have a feeling what I will find is that turnovers don’t rank that far behind personal fouls in terms of possible irrelevancy in NBA draft-speak. Sure, when a shooting guard commits a bevy of turnovers — think Caron Butler this past week — that’s kind of glaring. A playmaker like Jeremy (remember, in Part 2 I declared that Jeremy is not a “shooter”) who is trying to get that X to cut to the hole to create a little something past two O’s is not the same thing as a stop-and-pop shooting guard dribbling through traffic when he’s supposed to let the point guard do that, but is unfortunately measured by the same archaic stat.

On the court, I’m no longer (as) surprised by what he can do. The double-spin move on Columbia? Haven’t seen his spin all that much, but I knew he had it in him. A courageous effort against Cornell’s “Terminator” defense, fearlessly challenging Foote to meet him at the rim? Can’t be more proud of him, but I knew he had it in him.

What I hadn’t yet seen came post-game at both the Columbia and Cornell games.

Part 4 will post tomorrow, as Harvard gets back on its feet to host Princeton and Penn this weekend.You might also like:

There and back again: Coast-to-coast to see Jeremy Lin (2/4)

poormanscommish — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:36:43 +0000

Harvard-Cornell tipoff. Can we have a do-over?

NOTE: This is Part 2 of 4. Part 1 posted yesterday. Part 3 will post tomorrow.

The game action

At Columbia, on the court Jeremy Lin did what he had to do to put away the underdogs. The right-handed shoulder-leading drive that knifed into the gut of the defense could only be contained so much by Columbia’s zone. And Jeremy showed off a double-spin move, which he capped with a dump-off pass to a wide-open Keith Wright for an uncontested layup.

Before the half ended, Jeremy had the ball with the clock winding down. Usually he takes the last shot, but this time, he drew a couple of defenders and dished off to Brandyn Curry, who nailed a three-pointer as time expired.

After Harvard took the floor in the second half, they soon gained control of the game and routed Columbia. Jeremy subbed out with about 12 minutes to play, and there wasn’t a subsequent situation which warranted him checking back in. The guys sitting next to me suggested that he was going to be saved for Cornell, but I didn’t necessarily agree because I have seen Coach Tommy Amaker put Jeremy into games in which Harvard had a twenty-point lead. However, in this game, none of the opportunities to put him back in made sense, and he spent the rest of the game on the bench. He tallied 14 points on 5-for-6 shooting in only 24 minutes of play.

At Cornell, Harvard came out nervous against the Big Red’s 1-2-2 three-quarter court press, despite Amaker starting senior Doug Miller ahead of Ivy League’s recently named rookie-of-the-week, Kyle Casey, who is a freshman, but also Harvard’s most talented and athletic player outside of Jeremy.

As Harvard kept turning the ball over, Cornell took an early lead that just got worse and worse for Harvard. At a burly 6′8″, Keith Wright was the only Harvard big man capable of providing any defense against Cornell’s 7-footer Jeff Foote, giving up four inches in the process, but Wright had expended all but one of his personal fouls by mid-second-half.

Fellow 6′8″ frontcourt teammate Pat Magnarelli, a scrappy and difficult-to-displace power forward who plays like a center, was out with a foot in a cast, and the only remaining frontcourt presence was 6′8″ Andrew Van Nest, a three-point specialist who is too skinny to guard any post player at this point in the freshman’s young career.

At times, 6′7″ small forward Casey was Harvard’s biggest body and had to cover Foote. Foote’s deliberate yet versatile array of drop steps, crossover steps, jump hooks, brute-force putbacks, and the ability to recognize teammates cutting to the hoop and delivering out of the double-team, turned into a nightmare for the weaker Harvard frontline. Here’s hoping Magnarelli will return in time for the second meeting against Cornell.

Harvard stuck with a man-to-man, probably because on paper, zone wasn’t going work against the tall Cornell outside shooters, who all managed to have a solid game shooting. In retrospect, after Cornell got up by 20, Amaker should have figured it couldn’t get any worse and switched to a 2-1-2 zone (you know, pyschological warfare) — although going against the grain like that is very hard to do in the heat of the moment.

I would even suggest that next time, he start his quickest, most mobile lineup (Jeremy and six-foot Curry and Oliver McNally along with Casey and Wright) and press the Cornell guards. Inasmuch that Harvard’s players were shredded one by one, Amaker didn’t show much innovation or risk-taking after it appeared clear that Cornell would be the dominant team, both physically and mentally, that night — well, outside of Jeremy, of course.

Don’t get me wrong. I think Amaker is a great psychologist and motivator for young ballplayers. He is brilliant when it comes to his positivity and the best thing about him is, he’s always composed on the sidelines and rarely complains to officials, rarely gets worked up about things that are out of his control. But when you play a monolith like Cornell, you better win in the X’s-and-O’s department. Every single facet of the game counts against them. Preparing for Cornell literally requires military strategy, especially when your troops are at severe disadvantages.

NBA Draft prospecting

We’ve definitely got to talk about Foote. Like Jeremy and perhaps all past, present, and future Ivy Leaguers, it remains to be seen at the Portsmouth Invitational how Foote stacks up against better competition. Earlier in the season, Foote held his own against consensus lottery pick and fellow 7-footer Cole Aldrich of Kansas. However, just when you felt Foote asserted his dominance over poor Harvard, he’d be called for traveling, end up airballing a jump hook, or pass it out when he should’ve attacked one-on-one.

Big Foote!

So I’d have to say, perhaps he’s not quite there yet in terms of mental toughness, otherwise the one-off airball or slip into passiveness goes away. He really doesn’t need to fix that much to become an up-and-coming NBA prospect. When you’re 7-feet, you just need to convert when you’re one-on-one and deliver the ball to the open teammate when you’re double-teamed. Pretty simple (the rest, you figure, can be drilled, taught, or corrected). That night against Harvard, he did this most of the time, and still only against a far physically inferior defense.

The other detracting aspect of Foote is that he may be too slow to execute or defend the NBA’s high-pick-and-roll style of play. I could be wrong, but I cannot recall Foote participating in any high screen situations for Cornell. Not that he needed to. In the college game and with the personnel that they have, Cornell is better off with Foote near the basket on every possession.

Ryan Wittman is a different story. Contrary to Foote’s game, it’s a lot harder to evaluate a non-post-up player after just one game, but if Wittman has been consistently taking ill-advised catch-and-shoot jumpers with a hand in his face this season, as he did that night against Harvard, then I’m afraid he’s either going to have to start hitting more of them or he’s not going to find a job in the NBA.

Let me put it this way: at times it seemed like he was gunning for the NBA and not necessarily a Cornell win. Being an effective role-playing off-the-bench shooter in the NBA doesn’t require you to hit 6-for-7 treys, all in people’s faces. It requires you to hit 2-for-2 if you only got two opportunities. Granted, if you’re hitting 6-for-7 in people’s faces three nights in a row, then you’ve convinced me that you’re just a cold-blooded sniper and you’ve won a spot in my regular rotation of 8, but doing that in the NBA is kind of a super-human feat (ask Jason Kapono). But who knows, maybe NBA scouts don’t look for the same things that I do.

So anyways, I can understand Wittman’s need to put up shots, but he wasn’t making them that night, nor has he been lately, per ESPN’s game log. Come Portsmouth, I think he needs to just make the open ones and not jack them up so much.

Compare that to Jeremy’s shot selection. To be honest, I can’t remember the last time Jeremy forced a bad shot this season. And no, I don’t equate his attempt to draw free throws against Foote by faking a jumper then drawing Foote’s contact and throwing it up — which Jeremy amazingly made late in the 2nd half, against a 7-foot body hurtling into him! — as a bad shot. (By the way, the ref did not call a foul on that play and I’d be curious to see the replay.)

In other words, Jeremy’s shots are all calculated gambles or, quite simply, meaningful attempts — most of them layups, mind you. I’ve seen enough adult men’s basketball at all levels to know that it is very hard for a human being not to take a bad shot throughout an entire game. It may be a shot that’s too early in the shotclock, it may be a selfish shot because your teammate failed to pass you the ball when you were open last time down, or it may be (as Doc Rivers coined for Rajon Rondo two years ago) a “hero” shot.

When people talk about Jeremy, that’s where people get it wrong. He’s not a “shooter”. A shooter is someone, a la Kobe Bryant or Ray Allen or Reggie Miller, who will take a shot in your face as a way to dominate you. Jeremy’s not like that. Therefore, speaking as a basketball purist, I’m okay with people saying that Jeremy is a “scorer” as long as they recognize his contributions as a table-setter for his teammates. He’s a facilitator. He delivers the ball to the basket, one way or another, but it’s typically not with long jumpshots.

Notice how he took zero three-pointers against Cornell, which may indeed be a testament to Cornell closing out knowing that Foote has their backs, but how many “streetball” players do you know, how many potential NBA Draft-pick guards, would have jacked up a trey trying to catch up in this game?

And that’s why he could be a fantastic point guard in the pros. His discipline and overall game plan is truly amazing for a 22-year-old.

Perhaps that’s why so many people don’t think he’ll make the NBA. Perhaps the litmus test is, can he take over a game like Brandon Jennings, who will not only scissor the defense but also show off an array of step-back three-pointers in people’s faces and just light it up in that way? I’ve said it from Day One: Jeremy Lin is like Jason Kidd. Have you ever seen Jason Kidd “light it up”? Sure, he can take over a game, but not with his perimeter outside shooting. Jeremy is similar.

Also, the difference between Jeremy and the average college player is that he can get down low in attack mode and use his shoulder to create a seam between defenders. In this era of basketball players, most guys who attack like Jeremy are well over 6′3″ — Damion James of Texas and Evan Turner of Ohio State come to mind.

I’m not sure that most NBA Draft evaluators are even self-conscious of this aspect of the game, the secret sauce which ultimately made Michael Jordan the most perfect player we have seen in history — check the videotape and play MJ in slow motion. Incidentally Kobe and Dwyane Wade subscribe to MJ’s style of attack, whether they know it or not (I’m sure they do).

When you see a point guard shorter than around Jeremy’s height, you expect him to have blazing lateral quickness and a stocky frame that can absorb contact when the defender recovers from the lateral move. Tim Hardaway would be a good NBA example. In more modern times, think Jonny Flynn, Derrick Rose, or Sherron Collins of Kansas.

When you see a point guard taller than around Jeremy’s height, you expect him to have long limbs that can step around defenders and deliver the ball with passes that go around other bodies. Magic Johnson would be a good NBA example. In more modern times, think Russell Westbrook, John Wall, Ricky Rubio, or Manny Harris of Michigan.

Just put all these guys I mentioned in slow motion. Advance the video, frame by frame. You’ll see that most players don’t get their bodies at that a sharp an angle which makes them difficult to stop when they attack. Even Kidd doesn’t really play that way (he uses more of a bulldozer-like power). Wall relies on his lateral length, side-to-side jukes, and big first step. Collins relies on beating you to a spot and using his bulk to create space (a la Kidd). Thus far, in my limited scope of college basketball observations, I’ve only seen one other top table-setter who attacks like Jeremy: Iman Shumpert of Georgia Tech. (Perhaps Evan Turner also has it amongst a huge repertoire of moves, but I need to see him play more.)

I think part of the reason why Jeremy’s draft stock isn’t as high as it should be (among a few other glaring things such as the fact that he plays for Harvard and has an unorthodox jumper) is that people aren’t used to seeing this style of play, which I believe is the most reliable and effective in basketball, in a 6′3″ 200-lb body.

Stay tuned tomorrow for Part 3 of 4: “Back to the vaunted Cornell team” and “Jeremy Lin, warrior”You might also like:

There and back again: Coast-to-coast to see Jeremy Lin (1/4)

poormanscommish — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 23:05:49 +0000

NOTE: This is Part 1 of 4. Part 2 posted on 2/3/10. Part 3 will post on 2/4/10. Part 4 will post on 2/5/10.

Photo courtesy Jennifer Ho.

You never know what you’ll see from Jeremy Lin.

I’ve said that a lot, but usually it’s pertaining to some move I saw him do (not televised and streamed online and you probably can count the number of other people simultaneously watching it on one hand), such as hitting the buzzer beater from near-half-court — with the foul! — in triple overtime against William & Mary, or making four steals in a span of five consecutive possessions by Dartmouth, or baiting Georgetown’s impressive backcourt duo into a half-court steal and dunk, or racing back full court and swatting a layup by UConn’s potential future NBA draft pick Jerome Dyson, or vanquishing Boston University in a 27-second stretch near the end of the game by converting an incredible layup while nearly going too far under the backboard, followed immediately thereafter by a steal and thunderous one-handed dunk to cap a personal 11-0 run. I’m sure I’ve left out more.

I’ve now met with bonafide evaluators of the NBA Draft and there is consensus that, at a minimum, Jeremy can be a star in Europe and/or Asia. So when there’s a real possibility that the months of February and maybe a little bit of March may be the last time to see him play live on American soil, I make it a point to go see him.

A coast-to-coast excursion to the concrete jungle where dreams are made of, where the streets make me feel brand new and big lights inspire me (they really do, actually!), where my old college roommate Brian Yang — yes, he of ESPN blogpost fame — runs Dream League New York? No problem.

A tangential trek in freezing temperatures to witness a showdown with profound post-season implications, a potentially epic non-televised clash against perennial Ivy League juggernaut Cornell? Even though it’s in the boonies known as Ithaca, yes, I will find a way (in case you were wondering: Jetblue to Syracuse straight north, only an hour drive southwest!).

Most of you might say it was a waste. I watched Jeremy and Harvard destroy an overmatched Columbia squad, then not more than 24 hours later, I saw the tables turned as Jeremy and Harvard got destroyed, similarly overmatched by the league bully, Cornell. Two blowouts, back-to-back.

Neither game resulted in a boxscore set ablaze by Jeremy’s play. Neither game raised eyebrows with the casual observer, nor the die-hard hometown fan, nor the bandwagonner curious to witness Jeremy “live up to the hype”. Neither game was all that competitive between the two teams.

Still, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

Approaching game time

Off the court, the Columbia game for me was the little cousin of the Santa Clara game. (Incidentally, it’s time I set the record straight. We did not sell tickets at a “heavy discount”, which suggests that we paid people to attend. We bought tickets 25 at a time at $5 apiece, then resold them for $8.88 — eight is a lucky number in Chinese tradition. I think our largest order through Dream League was for maybe a dozen tickets, which at $8.88 offers only a small discount off the $10 retail price at the Santa Clara ticket office. We actually made a very modest amount of money on the Santa Clara event, and this includes fronting the fifty or so up-close reserved seats, sold at $20 retail, that we comped for our most favorite Dream League friends. I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to Taylor and Ed in the SCU ticket office for all of their hard work in taking our bulk orders, multiple times on the phone and in person. And thank you to Columbia’s Anthony Di Fino, for dealing with all of our last-minute will call seat assignments for by email, merely hours before tipoff.)

Now, Columbia’s gym (capacity: 3,400) doesn’t have baseline seating and a sellout can make you feel like you’re in a sardine can, while Santa Clara’s arena (4,700) feels like it’d be a nice NBDL venue built for decent 360-degree viewing angles.

The entrance at Columbia consists of two single-file turnstiles, one for entering and one for exiting, that lead into a narrow L-shaped lobby. While milling around before tipoff, our guests, some of them who had been to Columbia games in the past, were amazed by what a zoo that area had become. I found a little “cove” where I could hand out half of our crimson-colored Dream League t-shirts, which were to show support for Jeremy and the Harvard Crimson team. I also got a chance to meet Loo Yee-Shin, former Taiwanese National Team star and a friend of Dan Rosen, who occasionally writes for SLAM Magazine.

It was a much more intimate setting at Columbia than Santa Clara, and the ticket-selling and redistribution effort on my part was, thankfully, proportional. This means that while the Santa Clara project was a “beast”, getting people to go to Columbia was quite manageable, although it still kept me busy for as much as two days prior to tipoff.

Couldn't find this issue of SI yet!

In fact, the day before I had departed for New York was my last conversation with Pablo Torre, who writes for SportsIllustrated (“SI”). He had wanted to get my feedback on some of the wording for the impending SI article, to avoid any potential controversies pertaining to the Asian-American angle of the story. He also said that the new issue would hit newsstands the next day.

When I arrived at JFK, none of the newsstands at JFK had the latest issue. When I arrived in Brian’s neighborhood, not even the local Border’s bookstore had them. Luckily, Brian’s been an SI subscriber since 1985 (!), so that afternoon, as we typed away on our keyboards getting our work done, in the backs of our minds we were waiting anxiously for the new issue to arrive in the mail. When it finally did in the early evening, we were just sitting there, stunned with amazement.

Jeremy had been featured in America’s most revered, venerable sports magazine. As teenagers, Brian and I used to keep every issue of SI that had Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods on the cover. Actually, to this day, Brian still absorbs every issue, reading every word from cover to cover (something I had less and less time for over the years). We would have never thought an Asian-American basketball player could be featured in such a time-honored publication — well, outside of SI’s “Faces In The Crowd” section, that is.

It was only fitting that we would be reunited this past week for that reason.

At the Columbia game two nights later, it was great to see DLNY’ers I hadn’t seen since last year’s Gotham Games tourney. I got to meet Twitterers, random youth fans, and other guests invited by Brian, who brought his camcorder and took the opportunity to capture the fan fervor. I sat next to Peter Robert Casey, basketball social media “maven” (for lack of a better word). Dan occasionally took down some notes and asked me questions here and there, while Brian candidly interviewed random fans and got them on videotape.

Contrast this with the Cornell game. Again sticking with off-the-court stuff, my drive from Syracuse to Ithaca was memorable, indeed. With outside temperatures consistently at zero degrees Farehnheit, I learned that everything is the opposite of visiting Las Vegas in the middle of July for NBA Summer League.

In Vegas, you hurry on up into your car and turn the air conditioning at its coldest setting on full blast. And you leave it on full blast. In Upstate New York, you hurry on up into your car and turn the defrosters (front and rear) on full blast. And you leave them on full blast unless, of course, you don’t want to see outside your fogged up windshield and windows!

The crowd at Cornell was a sight to see as well. The students were raucus and “hostile environment” was an understatement. Cornell star Jeff Foote later was quoted as saying…

“I would compare it to the first time we won the Ivy League title,” Foote said. “The crowd was rocking. They gave us tremendous energy and made it a great college basketball atmosphere. It really fires us up and we really like to play in front of a lot of people.”

I really felt like I was in enemy territory.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s installment, Part 2 of 4, “Game action and NBA prospecting”.You might also like:

Much ado about China

poormanscommish — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 18:33:59 +0000

Kobe Bryant with the necessary visit to China.

Here’s an update to our last report on China. Meet Kenny Huang, who just dropped about $70 million to purchase 15% of the Cavs (worth around $476 million), as reported by Brian Windhorst.

Meanwhile, UPS has signed a sponsorship deal with the CBA (Chinese Basketball Association). Dream League friend Terry Rhoads, an expert on sports in China, was interviewed in the article on ChannelNewsAsia.com.

A potential $25 billion market with 300 million NBA fans. Remember those numbers!

Here’s the bio on Kenny Huang…

He speaks Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese and English. He has an undergraduate degree from a Chinese university and postgraduate degrees from two American universities. He knows about roads, electrical infrastructure, used to work on Wall Street and soon will own pieces of basketball teams in both China and America. He splits his time between Hong Kong, Guangzhou and the United States.

And here are his business partners in the Cavs deal…

The primary new partner, according to sources, is Albert Hung, a wealthy Chinese investor in numerous technology businesses. Also believed to be in the group is Adrien Cheng, a young businessman whose family operates New World Development, a massive Hong Kong conglomerate of companies. But Huang is the dealmaker, the key to bringing the parties together.

Finally, it appears that player movement to the CBA (and back) is still happening. RidiculousUpside.com has recently reported on the rejection of Courtney Sims, and the signings of Garrett Siler and John Lucas III, as well as ex-Warrior Marcus Williams.You might also like:

I believe YOU can help Jeremy Lin make the NBA, and what it will mean to young Asian-Americans

poormanscommish — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 23:17:15 +0000

Jeremy Lin swats 13th-ranked UConn and NBA draft prospect Jerome Dyson, in a game on 12/6/2009. Click the image above to enlarge.

Now that the Jan 4, 2010 Harvard at Santa Clara event page is up, I feel compelled to tell you why I really, really want you to go with us to see Jeremy Lin make his potential once-in-a-lifetime appearance here in the Bay Area.

From my perspective, time is running short and I can’t spent the next 27 days proofreading and making this plea perfect because for the next 26 days, I need to be out fighting for my cause and referencing this. So if this comes out with flaws, so be it.

Let me say it bluntly:

If you attend the game on 1/4/2010, it is my firm belief that you will help, ever so slightly, Jeremy make it into the NBA.

Before I get into the “why”, let’s discuss the “how”

A great movie is about to come out this Friday, produced by Morgan Freeman and directed by Clint Eastwood. It is called Invictus, about Nelson Mandela and the 1995 Rugby World Cup. I don’t have any insider information on this movie and have not read the book on which it is based, but from my research, it’s about how Mandela leveraged the World Cup in South Africa that year to unify a country.

It is said that while 62,000 South Africans filled the stadium that day, it represented 40 million on the same team.

First of all, no, I’m not saying that I’m Nelson Mandela and Jeremy Lin is Francois Pienaar, the star rugby player played by Matt Damon. Let’s just get that out of the way. What I’m saying is this…

Just think back. If you were one of those 62,000 that attended that game that day, you witnessed history. You witnessed something bigger than you or me, but as big as you and me put together, with him and her sitting next to you, multiplied on and on throughout the whole stadium, and more.

You represented the progress of humanity that day.

I believe January 4th, 2010, at Santa Clara University’s Leavey Center, will be a smaller version of that.

Let me also make an important point. Making the NBA is not based solely on merit. In the same vein as Invictus, let me offer a smaller comparison: getting an NCAA scholarship is not based solely on merit.

Let’s say you’re a pretty darn good point guard, good enough to lead your high school varsity basketball team to a dramatic upset of the incumbent perennial champion. No one expected you to win, but you did it. Not only that, you were named state player of the year in your school’s division, the same division as that perennial powerhouse.

Would you even bother sending video highlights to coaches? Don’t you think an NCAA scholarship would be waiting at your front door?

If you’re a Jeremy Lin fan, you know that what I just described happened to Jeremy. That’s why he’s playing at Harvard, not Duke. Ivy League, not ACC. Not Pac Ten, not even West Coast Conference.

So if history is any indication, if the NCAA is as close an example as you can have to the NBA, then no matter what Jeremy does on the court, there are other forces at play when it comes to getting drafted.

People helped the JabbaWockeeZ become famous.

Take the JabbaWockeeZ, for example. The JabbaWockeeZ have always been the JabbaWockeeZ. They didn’t miraculously become what they are after a few episodes on America’s Best Dance Crew (ABDC). They’d been there the whole time. It was the masses that made them famous.

When they made their historic championship performance in the premiere season of ABDC, of course, they performed at their best. But don’t you think that their rabid fans packing the stands helped out? The judges had to see that the JabbaWockeeZ were for real. Viewers had to see that on TV, that the JabbaWockeeZ could become heroes to a crowd.

I wouldn’t be surprised if someone at Gatorade was observing on TV that day. Next thing you know, they’re on the same Gatorade commercial alongside Bill Russell and Muhammad Ali, broadcast nationwide during the NBA Playoffs.

Also, I’ve learned that getting drafted (or not) plays a significant role in one’s basketball career. Once you are drafted, you are basically annointed “NBA-caliber” by supposedly smart basketball people. There’s no going back. Players that are drafted will have an advantage over players that are not, because an NBA executive’s job is on the line if a pick turns out to be embarrassingly incorrect. It is exceedingly rare for an undrafted player to make the NBA, although it is certainly possible.

So, how does one get drafted? Well, the usual formula for success is to get into a marquee NCAA Division I program, but Jeremy’s well past that point. Incidentally, Jeremy’s body finally started to catch up with this skill last summer, and this past summer, he was finally on the fast track where skill and athleticism were coming together at the same time. So there was no option to transfer. He’s a bit of a late bloomer, depending on how you look at it.

There’s also the NBA pre-draft camps and things like that, but anything can happen there. It helps if you have people who have strong reputations in judging NBA talent in your corner, but like everything that has happened to Jeremy, he hasn’t been afforded that opportunity because of the holy war that goes on behind-the-scenes between the angels and demons of both the NCAA and NBA.

But like I said, there are other forces in play. A high-powered NBA-related mover-and-shaker once told me that the NBA is almost like a circus. Mind you, this is the same guy who put the pre-draft combine into the NBA 2K10 video game. He couldn’t be more on point, and this might just benefit Jeremy. Look at how the influx of talent started generation by generation way back in the beginning with whites, then blacks, then Europeans, and now foreigners in general. Seriously, I find it hard to believe that the Dallas Mavericks couldn’t have found a similar American player, perhaps black, compared to Rodrigue Beaubois of Guadelupe or J.J. Barea of Puerto Rico. These are two players who have unique stories to tell. If their game is on par with other draft prospects, then the guy with the unique story to tell gets the spot.

Well, maybe. There are only 30 NBA teams and some may or may not fit the mold of the traveling circus. We shall see.

Unfortunately, being raised in the projects of an American metro is no longer a unique story. At the same time, it has become the accepted story. The benefit of the accepted story is that you are automatically assumed to be a good player. So there’s advantages and disadvantages for being the flavor of the month or the dominant majority.

Our mission here is in that unique story to tell, to help make Jeremy the eventual flavor of the month.

When Jeremy’s name comes up in pre-draft camps, NBA people will see the tapes against UConn. But I’d be shocked if they didn’t use Google. The NBA isn’t some huge magical mystery machine. There are human beings working for these teams. They use Google, trust me. Wouldn’t it be grand if they came upon the story of 1/4/2010, when hundreds of Asian-Americans from his hometown came out to see him play in his return visit?

Will it be the only deciding factor? Of course not. Jeremy still needs to play like he’s been playing, hopefully even better, and fortify his stats. Harvard needs to keep winning. But it’s a factor, no matter how small.

Jeremy Lin vs Jerome Dyson: doesn't happen often.

The “why”

Hey, I’ve still got the big picture in mind. Golden eggs don’t happen without the Golden Goose. NBA Cares doesn’t happen without the NBA. There’s no cause without the root. Jeremy still needs to perform. If Jeremy performs, makes his team better, and Harvard gets into the NCAA by winning the Ivy League championship, then 1/4/2010 doesn’t matter. Sure, I know that. I’m one of the happiest men on Earth if that happens.

And at the end of the day, it’s no different than Earl Woods proclaiming that Tiger would have the power the change humanity. Sure it may be true, but let the kid play golf, will ya? I know that. But it doesn’t change what’s among us, in society, already evident to me. Whether Jeremy likes it or not, if he makes the NBA, he will change humanity as it relates to Asian-Americans and basketball. Again, it’s bigger than me or you, or him.

So along those lines, I hope Jeremy or any of his friends or family never reads this. It’s better if they don’t worry about it. The last thing he needs is added pressure and yet another reason to try to win a game, or take away his focus from helping a young Harvard squad win one basketball game together as a team.

But that still doesn’t mean you should skip out on this game.

There are other reasons to grab tickets to this game. Let’s suppose Jeremy does not make the NBA. Then he will almost certainly leave for Europe, with Asia as a backup, and play overseas. At that point, 1/4/2010 will become Jeremy’s last major appearance in an arena on American soil, let alone the Bay Area.

As for the NBA Development League, which is played in small venues largely dotted throughout the Midwest, it’s a little early to speculate, but my guess is that he will get offers that he can’t refuse overseas. In fact , it may increase his chances of making the NBA if he goes to Europe first, at which point we still won’t know if he’ll eventually make the NBA. I just don’t see the NBDL as a good fit, assuming he’ll be somewhat in control of his destiny if he’s not drafted into the NBA. At least for now, logically, I envision him less playing in the NBDL, than in the NBA or Europe, because he’s that good.

ESPN’s renowned, #1 analyst for NCAA basketball, Jay Bilas, wrote this past Monday, the day after watching Jeremy Lin play against UConn…

Jeremy Lin can play in any league anywhere.

Everytime I brag about him, such as after his buzzer-beater a few weeks ago, people still go “meh”, then he’ll do something like go out and score 30 points on #13 UConn last Sunday, with TWO slam dunks. Have you ever seen an Asian man dunk in a game? Have you ever seen it live? Have you ever seen an Asian as the best basketball player inside an arena packed with thousands of people?

Here’s your chance.

Do want to see this in the NBA? Do you want to see him on an ESPN highlight somewhere, wearing any one of thirty possible NBA jerseys? Wouldn’t you be proud?

Here’s your chance to contribute, ever so slightly, to the Jeremy Lin Movement.

And especially for you ballers out there. Especially those of you who are of Asian descent. Remember that day way back when, when you were young, you were bored, you just got done watching the Lakers beat the Supersonics on a lazy Sunday, and you were itching to play basketball?

So you went out to the local basketball court, by yourself.

When you got there, you didn’t get on the next five, even though you saw the guy who called “next” only had three. Two other guys, non-Asians, showed up after you did and he picked them up instead of you.

So you had to call “next” after that to make sure you got on. You had a random team of blacks, whites, Hispanics, and you. Did they pass you the ball? When you touched the ball, weren’t they all screaming at you to pass them the ball?

Deep down inside, isn’t that why you play in Dream League today?

Someone on the DIME Magazine comment board for their recent Jeremy Lin blogpost said it best…

anytime i walk on the court w/o nonasians i feel like i gota prove something

If you’re an asianballer, you know exactly what I’m talking about. If you’re not, then you just saw a glimpse of the discrimination that occurs on American playgrounds everyday.

And finally, if you’re a baller, no one in the grassroots can pay a bigger compliment than this, as tweeted by Twitter user @GMSTRory…

Yo I’m watching Uconn vs Harvard. Harvard has this Asian nigga named Jeremy Lin. He’s the truth. Nigga had 30 on Uconn.

When you hear that, all the annoying little discriminatory things from the past begin to rest easier. You start to think, maybe the next generation of Asian kids won’t ever need to go through what I went through.

And we haven’t even touched on the “model minority” or “bamboo ceiling” issues. Some other day, perhaps.

Wouldn’t that be great if urban kids can also come out and watch Jeremy play? They can. Fortunately, we here at Dream League, that’s what we do. We run basketball leagues, we employ kids from the projects and we even let them play with us. We get to know them, they get to know us. We were dispelling the notion to the kids from the projects that Asians couldn’t play basketball long before Jeremy Lin arrived.

With every $5 donation to Dream League, I’ve set it up so that they will attend the game, chaperoned by my fellow high school principals and community center directors, who are Dream League’s gym coordinators.

To entice you to work and spread the word, I have a special going on. Get 10 people to go at the less-than General Admission price of $8.88 (normally $10), and I give you a pair of Lower Reserved tickets ($20) for free.

By the time Jeremy goes pro somewhere on the planet, you will look back on this and say, “Damn, what a bargain.”

Me, I’m calling every single person I know. This is a cause worth fighting for. Join me. It’s no different than forcing a closure of a campus building to protest your student fee hikes. You’ll likely not get arrested and have a higher chance of seeing an Asian man dunk, to boot.

Jeremy Lin in the NBA would pave the path for so many other Jeremy Lins to follow, from those on any random playground court in America to the full-fledged AAU teams playing in tournaments in gyms.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. — Confucius

Please, recognize that what you’re doing now could lead to something great.

Jia Yo!You might also like:

Jeremy Lin: the revolution will not be televised, starting today

poormanscommish — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:45:20 +0000

Jeremy Lin, Harvard media guide cover (click for PDF).

The “quest” begins today when Harvard faces Holy Cross. And no, the game’s not on TV. There won’t even be Internet video. In fact, the only thing available is streaming audio.

Or, you can follow my live-tweet of Jeremy’s game at http://twitter.com/nbalivetweet.

At first I wanted to use the cliche headline “the good, the bad, and the ugly”, more just to get attention, but I’m old enough and been-there-done-that enough to know that if you take a step back from all this, there’s really no “ugly”.

This Asian-American young adult is the coverboy of this year’s Harvard Basketball Media Guide. He did it! Harvard is a bonafide Division-1 program in a league whose champion gets an automatic NCAA Tournament bid, whose head coach developed under a living basketball legend.

A famous college town near Boston is fiercely loyal to an Asian-American hoop star in a leadership position. Jeremy Lin is Harvard Crimson basketball. We could stop right here and be ultra-proud.

But I just wanted to temper the “man-crush” with an honest evaluation of Jeremy’s game (the good and the bad), as well as explain further why it will be doubly hard for him to make it into the NBA (the so-called “ugly”).

Let me preface by saying that this is the first real blogpost about Jeremy Lin. Also, this is one of my trademarked (bemoaned? abhorred? rambling?) loooong posts, but filled with relevant information, I assure you. The first two posts on this site were really just to lay down the gauntlet once and for all and declare him, admittedly without much evidence revealed, a bonafide NBA prospect — a first-rounder at that, if it weren’t for fate.

Let’s get right down to it, except I’m gonna list it as follows: bad, good, ugly.

THE BAD

Here’s what’s wrong with Jeremy’s game and let me not make any excuses. No ifs, ands, or buts.

First of all, his shot is unorthodox and doesn’t necessarily go in all the time. He tends to shoot the ball at an angle, so that his body is slightly tilted toward his dominant right hand. The release of the ball is to the right of his forehead and, as a result, the kick of his leg is a little more pronounced than need be. Totally not textbook.

Developing a shooting stroke is one of basketball’s toughest aspects. I know from personal experience that it can take several years of tweaks and iterations. Jeremy’s still young. There’s still time to change his shot. And in my opinion, it should undergo a complete makeover, although it’s not all that bad, as-is.

Also, he needs to jump to get his shot off. In the NBA with the stripe at 23′9″, it is not advisable unless you possess rare human prowess like Ray Allen does, to do a jumpshot as your three-pointer, particularly if you are a player who does other things than shoot, and might require the energy involved in a jumpshot for some other facet of the game. In fact, even Michael Jordan adjusted his approach so that he took the trey as a set-shot rather than a jumpshot.

Jeremy won’t win a dribbling contest, at least not yet. As far as ballhandlers go, to simplify the world, there are two types. One is the “Skip To My Lou”, between-the-legs, behind-the-back, shift you left, shift you right, break your ankles type. The other is of the keep-your-body-between-defender-and-ball mold, attack him with your shoulder, go North-South type. Jeremy is of the latter. The latter is not flashy, nor will it likely bail you out when surrounded by two or three defenders.

Jeremy is not necessarily super-quick laterally a la Brandon Jennings. It just seems like that’s the expected standard for the NBA these days. I will resist the tempation to say but.., so I’ll let you think of other NBA roster point guards who are not super-quick laterally. You’ll notice the list will get longer and longer.

Now, I never said Jeremy was lottery pick material!

On defense one-on-one, Jeremy is not one to pick the ball from you, and he might be prone to being stop-and-popped on or crossed over to the hole. Again, there are two ways the average baller defends a dribbler one-on-one. Way #1 is to use your long arms and hands, perhaps your lateral quickness, to poke the ball out or at least frustrate the ballhandler with pressure up top. Way #2 is to always keep your defender in front of you.

The drawback of Way #1 is that, when implemented, it’s a gamble and the guy might blast past you, especially if he uses his body correctly. The drawback of Way #2 is if you keep your man in front of you, he could stop-and-pop in front of you. Let me also submit that Kobe Bryant is borne of Way #1 and has almost mastered Way #2. The only masters of both Ways are in the company of MJ, Scottie Pippen and Gary Payton, whose origins are actually with Way #2. These days people, both the defenders themselves as well as scouts, have forgotten about Way #2. That’s why it has somewhat frustrated me that Kobe has won so many All-Defensive awards, although he does deserve them because… it’s all relative!

But I digress. Honestly, that’s it. There aren’t gaping holes in Jeremy’s game. Jeremy is a complete player and the stats are there to back that up.

It’s time to the turn the “ifs, ands, and buts” switch back on. I have basically criticized him in three areas, the first of which (shooting) is unfortunately very noticeable, the second of which (dribbling) doesn’t prevent him from being a good ballhandler as-is and can be improved upon, and the third of which (one-on-one defense) is greatly outweighed by the positives of playing team defense, as you’ll read below.

THE GOOD

Let me start with my favorite subject: defense. I mean, this kid just gets it. You don’t see this in many basketball players, be it the highest Asian American tournament levels where you have ultra-smart players who never had the athleticism – Jeremy K. Lee of UC Irvine fame or Benny Hoang of Cal-State LA and Alpine come to mind as “getting it” — or be it the general basketball population! Seriously. Flip on ESPN2 one of these weeknights and show me a smart, team-oriented defensive player in the NCAA.

First of all, let’s talk about man-to-man defense. Sure, every summer you can find Jovan Harris doing his Allen Iverson impersonation and going to the hole or stopping-and-popping on anyone he chooses, Jeremy Lin included, in the SF Pro-Am League. However, Jeremy’s been the only one who can keep a guy like Harris in front of him. Jeremy’s ability to retreat in the defensive stance is very impressive. It’s too bad the Pro-Am doesn’t keep hustle stats, because Jeremy will always tally at least two or three blocked shots on Harris, despite Harris with his stop-and-pops inevitably ending up with 25 or more points scored.

As far as the team defense concept is concerned, Jeremy knows when a teammate might be at a disadvantage, and knows when to help. When on the weakside, he can also sense when the team defense has shifted and there’s all of a sudden a big man kind of getting open underneath. Jeremy will sacrifice himself and drop down to cover that big man. I don’t even think most NBA players are willing to do that, these days. Sometimes in the Ivy League, that will leave a shooter on the opposite wing, and last season Harvard could get torched by that. But he’s not going to leave a big man open in the key. You just can’t teach that.

Oh, and he’ll of course take the requisite number of charges during the season. Guaranteed. Definitely a team player when it comes to defense.

You heard it here first.

Whichever NBA team ends up with Jeremy, I hope maybe you have read this before signing him. Because you are going to love this part of him. And he’s coachable, he’s smart, he listens, and he executes. Jeremy belongs in the NBA if not only for his incredible grasp of the concept of team defense.

Alright, let’s move onto offense. I’ve said before that he’s a Poor Man’s Jason Kidd, maybe even Steve Nash, but I think he’s more like Kidd because he can rebound and doesn’t have the jumper that Nash has (yet?). Now, Kidd threw up some downright Hall Of Fame numbers not only in the NBA, but also in college. Jeremy’s not quite as history-making, all the while playing in a conference far, far inferior than Kidd’s Pac Ten back in the day. Still, there’s a resemblance. Jeremy makes his teammates better. He rebounds. And he runs the fastbreak, quite frankly, fast and he delivers the ball.

If Kidd is a 10 on the Kidd Scale of 1 to 10, I’m putting Jeremy at 7 or 8 right now. Maybe Jeremy’s just not as blazing fast. Maybe he doesn’t have Kidd’s behind-the-backs. Maybe Jeremy doesn’t have that third eye on the back of his head that makes Kidd a legend. But Jeremy’s got his own traits too. He’s got a lot more fluid look to his half-court offense than Kidd does. The way he can take the ball to the cup is more ballet compared to Kidd’s military attack.

You gotta wonder. What would Kidd have done if he were confined to the Ivy League? Fewer alley-oops? Fewer behind-the-back passes? Do you think Kidd’s numbers would have been as great as those he put up? Are we even comparing apples to apples?

So, you ask Poor Man’s Commish, how can we compare apples to apples? What if you evaluated Jeremy in a setting where there were other players of his caliber or even greater, like Kidd had on a day-to-day basis? You can’t be making all these accolades when you’ve never seen Jeremy in the right context!

Oh, but I have.

I can’t really talk about it, but I’ve seen him in closed scrimmages. The players at the scrimmage below include two future first-round lottery picks — okay, I’m speculating, but it’s not me that’s saying that, and after watching those guys I would have to agree with those who said it. There was also a starter on the #1-ranked team in college right now, as well as some other guys I don’t wanna talk about just yet. It was Fight Club, although I like to call it “Flight Club”. Rule #1 and #2, ya know? Here you go…

02:36 anticipates 1st option, steal, fastbreak, lob

03:04 crossover, low attack, recognize double, alley oop

05:50 simple tip blocked shot on layup

07:18 recognize front on post, lob entry over front

13:10 speed on steal, fastbreak 15:08 drive left elbow into teeth

18:40 drive right center off pressure, power floater

19:27 dime in traffic

21:20 recovers to steal lob on switch, touchdown pass

TITLE2

01:45 good team help instincts on quasi-zone

03:50 recognizes forward helping, dime to his man

05:27 boxes out 6′10″ pf

06:05 take right baseline then BOUNCE PASS BETWEEN LEGS OF HELP PF DEFENSE

12:07 loose reb, fastbreak speed flush

12:52 lefthand dribble penetrate key, dime left, then gets back on D after make to tip out touchdown pass.

13:25 drive hard right but pivot back middle inside paint jumper

16:17 drive left to free throw hashmark, teardrop over 6′11″

18:10 deep corner trey with legs under him, other end steal loose ball, FULL SPEED OTHER WAY SLAM!!!

21:04 hi-arching shot after penetrating lane righthand

22:58 fake jumpshot dump down to cutting pf/c

FIRST HALF

02:36 anticipates 1st option, steal, fastbreak, lob

03:04 crossover, low attack, recognize double, alley oop

05:50 simple tip blocked shot on layup

07:18 recognize front on post, lob entry over front

13:10 speed on steal, fastbreak 15:08 drive left elbow into teeth

18:40 drive right center off pressure, power floater

19:27 dime in traffic

21:20 recovers to steal lob on switch, touchdown pass

SECOND HALF

01:45 good team help instincts on quasi-zone

03:50 recognizes forward helping, dime to his man

05:27 boxes out 6′10″ pf

06:05 take right baseline then BOUNCE PASS BETWEEN LEGS OF HELP PF DEFENSE

12:07 loose reb, fastbreak speed flush

12:52 lefthand dribble penetrate key, dime left, then gets back on D after make to tip out touchdown pass.

13:25 drive hard right but pivot back middle inside paint jumper

16:17 drive left to free throw hashmark, teardrop over 6′11″

18:10 deep corner trey with legs under him, other end steal loose ball, FULL SPEED OTHER WAY SLAM!!!

21:04 hi-arching shot after penetrating lane righthand

22:58 fake jumpshot dump down to cutting pf/c

You can see why when people discuss with me, “Who’s the best full-blooded Asian-American baller you’ve ever seen?”, to me it’s a no-brainer. Guys will reference Robert Toloy, Rex Walters, Conant Chi, and the list goes on. To me, there is no comparison, yet I’d call all of them, Toloy, Rex, and Co, my friends, so I mean that with the deepest respect. I’ve played alongside Toloy and Co, and also against all three. In all instances, they were the best players on the court. But Jeremy’s better, plain and simple.

So yeah, he had two dunks (“flush” = dunk) in that scrimmage. He was the best backcourt player on the floor.

I happened to be positioned at the baseline of Jeremy’s frontcourt basket in the 2nd half. I had a clear view at about that 6:05 mark into the tape of the 2nd half. He took his man hard right baseline, so one of the future lottery picks — let’s call him Baby Amare — came to help, and to my incredible astonishment, Jeremy made a bounce pass between the legs of Baby Amare, into the key, to an open teammate right under the hoop. His teammate actually missed the layup (the help interior defense of this scrimmage averaged 6′10″, so I don’t necessarily blame Jeremy’s teammate for missing it), but who cares. You can’t teach that pass!

Jeremy’s got a sneaky way of delivering the ball. If you’re a defender, he’ll get you thinking he’s gonna do one thing (e.g., shoot), but then all the while he’s setting you up for something else. That’s a very unique style for a point guard in this era of basketball. Kid’s got a really high bball IQ.

THE UGLY

Assuming he has at least as good a season as he did last year at Harvard (let’s keep our fingers crossed!), here’s what Jeremy Lin detractors will say:

But he doesn’t want to play in the NBA. Silly. If you’re playing in a Division-1 NCAA conference and you make all-league consistently, you are by definition an NBA prospect. At that point, why would you give up the opportunity?
But he doesn’t have the mental toughness. Wrong. Jeremy’s a silent killer. Sure, he’s as prone to mental mistakes as any 21-year-old NCAA starter, but when he’s on or the team needs him, he’s got that quiet confidence. Actually, I shouldn’t have to explain this. The fact that he led Paly High to the state championship over Mater Dei should clue you in to that je ne sais quoi.
But he doesn’t have a jumpshot. Umm, he’s a point guard, not a shooting guard. Also, let’s take a look at the first-round point guards selected in the 2009 NBA Draft. Tyreke Evans: no jumper, Ricky Rubio: no jumper, Jonny Flynn: suspect jumper, Stephen Curry: hell yes!, B.Jennings: no jumper, Jrue Holiday: [I haven't seen him play enough, so I don't really know, but DraftExpress.com says he has a...] weak pull-up jumper, Ty Lawson: okay jumper, Jeff Teague: good jumper per DraftExpress, Eric Maynor: inconsistent shooter per DraftExpress, Darren Collison: weak perimeter shooting per DraftExpress, Rodrigue Beaubois: nothing special about his shooting.
But he’s not a point guard. Um, yes he is. Ask the guys at the aforementioned scrimmage. Just because he’s forced to play the 1, 2, and 3 at Harvard doesn’t mean he isn’t an NBA point guard. See also: Evans, Tyreke.
But he doesn’t average enough assists. When you pass to a teammate wide open underneath the basket and he can’t get the layup in fast enough, so he pump fakes, dribbles once, then lays it in, that’s not an assist in the NCAA. When you throw a touchdown pass and your teammate isn’t athletic enough to catch the ball in full stride, that counts as a turnover. See, the problem is, Jeremy is the most athletic player not only on Harvard, but in the entire Ivy League. He’s a caged tiger. When Jeremy Lin starts playing with people who can finish, in a more open-court style, you will see his points go down but his assists go up. Way up.
But he can’t dribble like the other point guard draft picks. I’m not even sure Kidd can dribble like the point guard draft picks of today. But you bashed Monta Ellis on his dribbling and he’s fine now, and Jeremy dribbles way better than Monta, averaged five assists per game on a heretofore below-average team, so I don’t know what the issue is.
But he played at Harvard in the weak Ivy League. Yeah, and Nash played at Santa Clara. So what? What was Jeremy supposed to do? He blossomed during his junior year, particularly in the muscle mass department. By the time you’re a junior, you can’t really transfer. So he tore up the Ivy League (well, mostly) last season with teammates who were a notch below him.
But I’ve never seen him play, so he can’t be that good. Well, unless he takes Harvard to the NCAA Tournament, you still won’t see him play, although if you’re in the Bay Area January 3rd, 2010, I’m sure as hell gonna do my best to make sure you do see him (versus Santa Clara University, of all places). Stay tuned to Poor Man’s Commish for the revolution that will not be televised.
But I’ve seen him play at SF Pro-Am, and he didn’t do much. Well, neither did Adonal Foyle and guess what, who’s Dwight Howard’s backup? The truth is, the SF Pro-Am is completely devoid of post play. It is completely devoid of pick-and-roll play. It is a penetrator and jumpshooter’s one-on-one league, which is why Jovan Harris (who can both slash and shoot) and Tim Kennedy (who can shoot) won the MVP the last two years. The Pro-Am is an ill-suited environment for a table-setter like Jeremy Lin.
But if he were that good, someone other than you would be writing about him. See Nash, Steve. Circa 1991-92.
But he can be a great player in Europe. I never said Jeremy had to start or even be in the rotation in the NBA. I said he’d be the first full-blooded American-born Asian to play in the NBA, meaning have a signed contract to be on the roster of fifteen. NBA experts would agree that such position players might be considered interchangeable with the better players in Europe. There’s a reason why Earl Watson is still in the Association (and I believe he deserves to be) and I can tell you right now, Jeremy Lin is better than Earl Watson. If you’ve intently watched NBA Summer League for the past three years and made it a point to remember some of these otherwise forgettable players, you’d say the same thing. Ironically, one of the few Asian-Americans in an influential position with the NBA, trainer Milton Lee of New York, confirmed this on TrueHoop just the other day. Please explain why you are dismissing Jeremy to Europe.
But he can be a great player in China. Same thing. Why China? Why not the NBA itself? Incidentally, in China, Jeremy would probably be considered one of the two allowable “import” players, for reasons which will become apparent in the next bullet point, which are usually reserved for big men or big-time inside scorers like Bonzi Wells.
But he can be great for the Chinese National Team and could be great in the Olympics. Imagine him with Yi and Yao! Or the Taiwanese team, for that matter. Well, it can’t be both, we know that, due to the ongoing political chasm between China and Taiwan. To play for China, you’d have to be a Chinese citizen, which means you’d have to renounce your American citizenship. Ask any American-born Asian if they would give up their American citizenship to play on a way inferior team (by Olympic standards) in a foreign country (yes, China is defined as a foreign country for the vast majority of us American-born Asians) and I hope you can now see why playing for Taiwan would be an order of magnitude ridiculous compared to China. Now, it will take Jeremy some time after he proves himself in the NBA (said the Poor Man’s Commish, confidently), and Blake Griffin isn’t even on Team USA, but why not Team USA?
But if he were any good, he’d have NBA types all over him already. Well, I can’t really talk about this, but I will say this much. An NCAA coach is an NCAA coach is an NCAA coach. And, as fate would have it, Jeremy is fiercely devoted to whomever his coach is (he’s old-school like that). For example, let’s say I suggest something to him. Chances are, I’ll sense that he’s not sure whether or not to accept my advice. Then, along comes any given coach who might suggest the same thing to him (case and point: shooting stroke), and he’ll listen to that coach when I was saying the same thing all along. Incidentally, I do coach Asian tournament teams, but coaching is not my profession. So anyways, sometimes in the holy war between NCAA coaches and the people who can maximize a player’s NBA value, the NCAA coach wins. I’ll leave it at that, for now.

“Discrimination” might be too harsh a word, but something is in there when it comes to the Jeremy detractors.

Let me give you an example of the subtle “discrimination” I’m talking about. There’s an acquaintance of mine whom I just met a couple months ago at a school. I see him every time I go to the school and we now often say hi to each other, and we know each other on a first-name basis, but that’s about it. He’s African-American, dark-skinned, has dreadlocks, and sometimes arrives with headphones on.

Now, when Jay-Z’s Empire State Of Mind first came out, I loved the track so much, I wanted to tell someone about it. But over at the school, it’s just not really an environment where you brag about the hip-hop/rap that you like. For example, I sure as hell wouldn’t feel comfortable about mentioning it to the older-looking Chinese women speaking Cantonese to each other in the corner.

Did I share my enthusiasm with the African-American fellow? No. Why should I? Just because he’s African-American?

If I did mention it, there may even be a chance that he could be offended. It’d be overtly obvious that I assumed he liked Jay-Z just because he’s black. And what if my acquaintance has been listening to NPR on those headphones? Not everybody with dreadlocks automatically likes rap, you know.

People just have to be really careful about pigeon-holing other people. So it’s the same type of thing with Jeremy. It’s not discrimination per se or in the usual context of the word, but whether you like it or not, race is a part of basketball and human beings are just the way they are. Now, no one’s gonna intentionally put down Jeremy because he’s an American-born Chinese and has slanty eyes. It’s those underlying assumptions that are of concern.

By the way, the fact that our race is predominantly a submissive culture doesn’t help, either. We tend to accept things the way they are. Only the most Americanized of us, myself included, will stand up and say, “Hey, wait a minute…”

THE SILVER LINING

In a nutshell: Sun Yue. Why the heck did the Lakers sign Sun Yue? From a pure basketball perspective, it made no sense. From a marketing perspective, it made perfect sense.

I just hope the other 29 owners see it the same way. If anything Jeremy ought to have a slight advantage in getting signed by an NBA team this summer. As a proponent of affirmative action, I’m all for this. But then again, Sun was let go at the end of last season.

This Dukie believes.

The other interesting thing I’m going to predict is that last year’s influx of point guards will, somehow, eventually help Jeremy. This is because when you get to training camp, you’ll have Jeremy head-to-head against a few of these 2009 first-round point guards, and he’ll look more impressive because he’s that good. On the other hand, all of these point guards are currently under contract.

Tommy Amaker may have put it best:

Jeremy’s been, in my opinion, one of the best all-around players in the country bar none. He’s in great shape and has always had a great deal of endurance. He can go longer and harder than the guy who is guarding him. He plays all over the floor and is a “throwback” player. He has worked his tail off to put himself in a position of leadership and taking ownership of that position has really improved.

I think the tide is starting to shift. The fact that the media guide now more correctly lists Jeremy at 6′3″ 200 lbs instead of a measly/insulting 6′1″ 180 is a good sign. However, I think he needs to continue to hit the weights until he is 205 lbs, or the size and width of Chauncey Billups.

Fellow community member Rob Rius hadn’t seen Jeremy for awhile and when Jeremy walked by him this past summer, Rob turned and told me, “I didn’t realize he’s so big!”

I gave him my usual answer whenever someone asks me about Jeremy: “Yep.”

Here’s hoping that the NBA is in the market for an old school baller. Someone who can galvanize an underdog NBA niche audience in Asian-Americans. And I hope you will see for yourself how special Jeremy is, in due time.You might also like: