After 21 games as of December 10, the Charlotte Hornets are toting a 13-8 win-loss record, which is good for the second spot in the Eastern Conference overall, and No. 1 spot in the Southeast Division.
Following a 99-81 victory over the previously front-running Heat on December 9, the Hornets bolted from the sixth spot to the second spot in the Eastern Conference, trailing only the Cleveland Cavaliers by a full game. The team is also enjoying a three-game winning streak following a defeat at the hands of the rampaging Golden State Warriors on December 2.
Just like in their 102-96 victory against the Chicago Bulls on December 5, when some American hoop sites started writing about the game, they did not focus on the contribution of the Hornets reserve point guard Jeremy Lin to the cause of Charlotte. Instead, they focused on his new and extraordinary-looking hairdo.
The Bleacher Report describes it as an obscure ponytail with a lot of grease and that it was really hard for them to give it the right words when they saw the Hornets point guard rolling into Time Warner Cable Arena.
Meanwhile, the For The Win sports section of USA Today, referred to Jeremy Lin’s new hairstyle as even more flagrant and unsanctioned than the last, referring to the 27-year-old’s Mohawk he was sporting up until their game against the Detroit Pistons.
Surprisingly, both sites focused on the new and unorthodox hairdo of Jeremy Lin more than his contribution to the victory over the obviously more potent and powerful Heat team.
It’s quite interesting to note how so-called American sportswriters focus on the appearance of a very popular Taiwanese-American NBA player especially on the internet and do not do the same report on some black American player sporting a blonde do.
Some critics call it as open discrimination and it is just unfortunate that things of a bygone era still happen in a very popular sport as basketball and the NBA.
Focusing on Lin’s miscues
It was no different with the Hornets’ recent victory over the Chicago Bulls. Instead of his contribution to the road win, the stories on the internet focused on one fastbreak play featuring Jeremy Lin and Jimmy Butler of the Chicago Bulls, where the 27-year-old Harvard graduate fumbled the ball and then missed the basket at very close range.
Stumbling and falling after making contact with Butler would have been bad enough but then Lin recovers the ball and misses a completely unguarded layup.
Fortunately for Jeremy, Butler fouled him after he missed the close-range shot and got the offensive rebound and he got the points from the line.
Lin made the points on the free throw line, but the site even called it as a pretty embarrassing moment. Had it been a different Hornets player, the site would not even write something about it or bother to post a video too.
Another site also featured the same video about Jeremy Lin rushing downcourt and fumbling and missing an open shot at close range, which only reinforces the notion that basketball critics would feature anything about Jeremy Lin, good or bad, because he is Jeremy Lin.
He may not be a great basketball player, but Lin is a good one. He knows the basics and he is one of the reasons why the Hornets are way above the .500 mark this early in the season, which is really unusual.
It is just unfortunate that some critics and basketball sites prefer to highlight the negative parts of the game of Jeremy Lin when it would have been reasonable to talk about the Hornets victory over the Bulls at the United Center.
Too early to compare averages
Based on the statistics provided by a basketball site, it also noted that the averages of Jeremy Lin have been declining over the last four seasons. He has been norming 10.4 points per game this season and the site is comparing it already to his 11.2 points per game output while playing for the Los Angeles Lakers last year.
It is just ironic and quite absurd really to compare his points after 19 games and put it against an average for the entire season last year composed of 82 games. Somehow it just does not do justice and obviously, the site is just capitalizing on the popularity of Jeremy Lin on the internet.
Hooray for the underdog JLin…an American story
Haters will hate. It’s what they do.