OT- Jeremy Lin is a class act
Remember the ESPN editor who was fired for using the phrase "chink in the armor" to describe Lin's turnover problems? Lin reached out and had lunch with him. This isn't related to anything Michigan at all, just thought it was interesting how much classier Lin is than most NBA players.
Wow, you must be pretty well connected to a lot of NBA players if you can make a judgement of their character like that.
True, could have been better said that Lin was countering some of the general perceptions of the league and its image problem. Runs in the same vein as a baseball player speaking out against steriod use.
He is Chuck Norris. Of course he is well connected.
I'm legitimately curious here. Are there even ten (out of the ~400) active NBA players who you have strong reason to believe are assholes? I mean, I'll give you JR Smith and Zach Randolph, but is there anyone else who makes it "obvious" in their "public image"?
As a counterpoint, I'll say that my personal experience (within both realms) leads me to believe that a higher percentage of MGoMembers are egregious dickheads than are NBA players.
Touche.
But I really was talking about the superstars/headliners (of course I neglected to mention that part which is kind of important); the NBA markets itself with its superstars and the ones who get the most headlines seem to be immature and selfish. LeBron, Shaq, Metta World Peace, Stephon Marbury, Allen Iverson, I could go on. Granted this may be the case for any athlete/celebrity, I just think the point that someone in that position with that kind of attention is doing a selfless act is getting lost in nit-pickiness over wordings.
Calling someone out for offhandedly disparaging hundreds of men on zero grounds is not, in my opinion, nitpicking.
And I'm glad you've decided to bring some evidence, but I think it's a bit telling that three of your five "superstars" are no longer in the league, and a fourth is currently a rotation player. When you say you could go on are you thinking of Derrick Rose? Or Kevin Durant? Or Dwight Howard or Blake Griffin or Dwyane Wade or Kevin Love or Chris Paul or Brandon Jennings? Do you think any of these guys are somehow worse human beings than a median Fortune 500 middle manager or the pharmacist at your Walgreens?
March 28th, 2012 at 10:21 PM ^
Okay if we are taking the argument to that of general human nature, then yes I will agree with you that the actions of NBA players, be they selfish or selfless, are likely in line with how the vast majority of human beings - all of us here on this board included - would act given their life circumstances, upbringing, privileges, shortcomings, or any life event that shapes one's moral being. I'm simply responding to the backlash the OP received to the statement "it was interesting how much classier Lin is than most NBA players." I feel this is probably an accurate statement given the kind of press we usually see from the league. Is it fair? Maybe/maybe not. But it is as immeasurable as "recruiting rankings accuracy." So it's nothing more than an opinion given my limited perspective, just as your statement is.
I'll allow it!
I'm assuming you can count to ten.
2. Kobe Bryant does the naughty with a little one in Colorado
3. Ron Artest and Stephen Jackson beating down random fans in the crowd
4. "We make a lot of money but we spend a lot of money" - Pat Ewing
5. Robert Horry towel into coaches face.
6. Spree attacks coach
7. Spree - I've got to feed my family
8. Allen Iverson's life
9. Sheed - "CTC" cut the check
10. Arenas acting out scenes from "The Town" with pistol in locker room
11. Arenas doing the shooting motion with his hands after said gun incident
12. "Taking talents" to many places
13. Teamwide boycotts of coaches
When shall I stop.
March 29th, 2012 at 11:32 AM ^
So none of that kind of stuff goes on in any other league? Are MLB, NFL and NHL players choirboys?
If you want to criticize professional athletes in general for being dubious role models, I necessarily wouldn't disagree, but I don't understand focusing exclusively on the NBA. It was the first league to adopt a salary cap, the first to adopt drug-testing, and is the only one to adopt a dress code, and probably has fewer fights than any of the other three sports.
Why should MLB get a free pass when 1) its players still won't accept a salary cap; 2) its players wouldn't accept any drug testing until there was a national outcry; 3) amphetamine use is still believed to be widespread (so much so that players who compete without it are said to be "naked"); 4) several players have been indicted by the feds for perjury; 5) players have gone after fans on more than one occasion; 6) the sport culturally sanctions pitchers throwing at players' heads in "retaliation" for hitting home runs. And on and on. You can come up with these lists for any sport.
they just wanted 10 examples so I gave them. While these kinds of actions are not confined solely to the NBA, do you see Jeremy Lin doing them? So it looks like the OP is correct, Jeremy Lin is a class act, and many NBA players are not.
March 29th, 2012 at 12:35 PM ^
A. Shit-talking, player-coach spats, and extra-marital sex in pro sports?! [Gasps, reaches for smelling salts]
B. Again, given all the venom people see fit to hurl at today's NBA, it would be nice if a majority of your list actually involved current players. It does not.
C. What jmblue said
was meant in comparison to other stories regarding NBA players that generally make the news. The same could be said about any other professional sport. Perhaps it is more a commentary on the media's belief that a shocking/bad story sells better. That was the thought going through my head, but I ended up poorly wording it.
Perhaps now I know how Mr. Federico feels.
However, I'm also Chuck friggin' Norris, so I can do whatever the hell I want.
Thanks for that insight, Coach Fitzgerald.
He had no obligation to meet with the editor and could have just wrote him off as a racist clown. Good for him to meet the guy and bring closure to the situation.
That editor is still an idiot, but I am pretty impressed with Lin for taking the time out of his schedule to meet with the guy.
would it become Linner?
his turnovers have been coming down quite a bit.... actually baron davis' turnovers are the real statistical outliers (i.e., 9 on Monday's game).
Not to take anything away from this as an admirable action, but why does every single mention of the NBA on this blog have to reference how despicable the league and/or its players are? You don't have to like the league, but those of us who follow it closely know that there's no reason to think most players aren't by and large good people.
The constant signling out of the NBA is curious. The problems associated with its players aren't too different from those of other leagues and in some cases may be milder (PED use in basketball is probably considerably lower in the NBA than it is in the NFL/MLB, for instance), but somehow the implication is that other sports are full of upstanding citizens.
Total non-story, imo. Kid had the email handle of "chinkballa" when he was in high school. He is a good kid and I will root for him. But this story is just... crap.
Not necessarily trying to equate the two, but if a black player used the "N" word in his email handle does that make it appropriate for an ESPN reporter to use that word in a headline about the player?
Are you really going to make this argument?
NO, of course not. It would never be OK to use the N word in an ESPN headline. But, these are like apples and green onions:
1) "Chink" is an actual fucking word. Look it up in the dictionary: "a crack, cleft, or fissure"
2) The N-word is not in the dictionary. Actually, it is. You get this: "The [n-word] is now probably the most offensive word in English."
The ESPN guy had a brainfart in a potentially racist way (unfortunately I cannot read minds so I cannot tell you his intentions). If they used the n-word? Well the only way to take that is blatently racist. Jesus. I cannot believe you made that argument.
MY racism is worse than YOUR racism! Nanny-nanny-boo-boo!
ALL racism is equally bad, there is no fucking Richter scale for racism.
I think he was trying to say that the ESPN writer could have been acting in a non-racist (still stupid, no doubt, but not intentionally racist) manner, while if you type out N**** there is literally no other meaning of the word.
"Chink in the armor" is an acceptable phrase used in the English language, and was innapropriate due to context. There is no context in which the use of the n-word is okay.
FWIW, if that's what he's saying than I agree; using N***** in a title is much worse than the title ESPN put out in the Lin article, although that was still uncalled for (unless someone can demonstrate that he wrote it to be racist).
That is exactly what I meant.
Unless its in the title of Kanye West and Jay-Z's latest single.
March 28th, 2012 at 10:17 PM ^
Yeah, but even in that instance they are balling so hard that motherf***ers wanna fine them.
March 28th, 2012 at 10:51 PM ^
was meant to be humerous (at least I took it that way, +1 because it is), but in all seriousness, if Rolling Stone had written a headline about Kanye and Jay-Z being N****'s in Paris, it would be inexcusable.
If Lin had written the "Chink in the Armor" headline, the discussion on it would be very different. It's an important distinction.
March 28th, 2012 at 11:38 PM ^
Unless it were written by a black author and thus the worst word in the world would then be complimentary right?
You're telling me that you actually believe that the writer may not have meant that word as a reference to Lin's race? You must be pretty naive. People who write headlines are in the business of coming up with puns.
You don't have to be able to "read minds" to decipher that that headline was meant as a pun, you simply have to look at the context.
If you believe that he didn't mean it in that way, you will believe anything.
Not only that, but your original post defended the headline based on Lin's email handle when he was in high school. That is what I was responding to.
I'm not saying he's racist. I'm just saying that it was a reference to Lin's race in the headline. My only explanation is that he didn't realize how offensive the word is. There were infinite Chinese puns that were used in Lin headlines. Perhaps he just thought that he didn't think he was crossing any lines. But it's really difficult to believe that he didn't mean it as a play on words.
Given the editor's wife and all, it was not meant to be racist. But it was DEFINITELY meant as a pun. Nearly all Lin headlines have been puns, and many, many headlines are meant to be puns. He should have known better or is an idiot.
March 29th, 2012 at 12:19 AM ^
I absolutely LOVE it when the public tries to determine whether or not someone they don't know is, in fact, a racist, bigotted, sexist jerk. The evidence is always so convincing, for both sides of the argument.
"Well he has friends who are ________, so obviously he's not."
"One time, when he dropped a bowling ball on his toe, I heard him say ________, he's obviously a huge racist"
"His team is mostly composed of ___________ and he's been to _______, therefore, not racist."
"Well he obviously wouldn't have ________ if he wasn't a raging a-hole bigot."
etc etc.
THANK YOU PATRICK BATEMAN. Jesus. All the people on here still comparing it to the N-word are bonafide morons. Get a fucking clue people.
March 29th, 2012 at 11:42 AM ^
It's Max Bretos, who used the phrase on air, who has the Asian wife and half-Asian baby. And I have no doubt whatsoever that his was an honest mistake.
...I especially admire that he declined to comment further about the lunch once it was done, because really, to be done was the whole point of this, it seems. That is pretty cool that Jeremy Lin reached out to this editor though - if nothing else, it shows what I would say is a pretty multi-dimensional view of life on Lin's part. The fact that he put it to rest in a personal manner, rather than an e-mail or letter or whatnot, says much about his leadership potential as a player and person really.
thats cool. All he does is lin lin lin no matter what.....Linsanity is dead though.
Lin doesn't like political correctness either. Yeah, the editor had a moron moment. But that is hardly criminal. Kudos to Lin for making an non story a non story again.
March 28th, 2012 at 10:04 PM ^
good to see one of ESPN darling boys isn't a jackass like Tebow.
March 28th, 2012 at 11:39 PM ^
Tebow is really the problem.