[Sobeyet]

Wrathblood, on 21 February 2012 - 08:08 PM, said:

Well, Lin couldn't have slipped THAT far below the radar. I mean, he did make it to the NBA.

He won a state championship in Cali and didn't get a single scholarship, Harvard has produced more presidents than NBA players (though they've had a few NFL players funny enough), pretty big whiff.

Not a single team drafted him in the NBA, and then he was cut a bajillion times. If the Knicks weren't doing so awful this year or had so many injuries there's a good chance he'd be playing in the D-league or overseas right now. If Stern didn't block the Lakers/Hornets/Rockets trade for Chris Paul, the Rockets might have kept Lin, but he would've been their 3rd PG and may never have gotten significant minutes (and judging by what CP3's doing for the Clippers it might have given Kobe a 6th ring). If Baron Davis came back 2 weeks earlier Lin probably wouldn't have started. If the Knicks didn't sign Tyson Chandler they wouldn't have amnestied Chauncy Billups and then Lin wouldn't have been signed. If the Knicks had held out to sign Carmelo instead of trading for him, they would've kept Raymond Felton and Lin probably wouldn't have been signed then either.

A lot of variables swirling around that made this possible...

[Wrathblood]

Well, yeah, but I don't think that's telling the whole story.

Harvard (nor any of the Ivys) doesn't give athletic scholarships so he wouldn't have gotten one from them and the schools that do only have a limited number they can offer. I guarantee that coaches from multiple schools at least talked to him (and/or his parents) and if they got the impression that he was serious about his academics (which his presence at Harvard suggests he probably was) then they wouldn't have bothered. I mean, if you *could* get into Harvard, are there ANY circumstances under which you would really go to, say, Arkansas instead if academics were a factor in even a minimal way? Also, its great that he was a state champion, but assuming 10 kids per state champion team, there are 500 kids winning state championships every year (obviously, winning CA would be a lot better than winning Maine, but still) plus standout players from non-champions and only so many scholarships at good colleges to go around.

Plus, being undrafted into the NBA isn't that uncommon. The NBA draft only lasts 2 rounds so only 60 players get picked. That sounds like a lot, but there are 64 teams in the NCAA tournament each year (which Harvard never reached during Lin's time) and another 32 go to the NIT (which Harvard also never reached during Lin's time) providing players (and some, like Duke, or Chapel Hill, are threats to put in more than one) plus amazing high school students all fighting for those 60 slots so the competition is incredibly tough.

Also, his college stats are good, but nothing (well, some folks might disagree, but I'm not convinced) screams future star. If he was really that great, shouldn't Harvard have at least been one of the top ~100 college teams at some point while he was there? Plus, Harvard actually got better after he left, improving from 21 to 23 wins and making the NIT for the first time (though they got crushed in the first round). Alternatively, look at Princeton, which is consistently a better team than Harvard, making the NCAA tournament with some regularity and even beat UCLA in the first round a few years ago, and Lin already has more NBA playing time than everyone who graduated from Princeton in the last 30 years added together (the last "real" NBA player from Princeton was Armond Hill who graduated in 1975).

People sometimes point to him having similar to, but better, stats than Jrue Holiday (who was at UCLA when Lin was at Harvard, was a first round pick by the Sixers and starts for them) but its really not an apples to apples comparison. They're the same size, and in 2008-2009 (which happened to be both of their best college years) had reasonably similar numbers for assists, rebounds, blocks and steals, though Lin was mostly ahead, and Lin outscored him 16 ppg to 9 ppg. But its not an apples to apples comparison, because not only was it Lin's junior year vs Holiday's freshman year, but also Holiday was playing against VASTLY tougher competition. Harvard's basketball stats page is freaking amazing, btw, superior to ESPN.com in some regards.

So, yeah, I mean, the guy's looking like a god and a lot of things had to line up right for him to get the chance and its entirely possible discrimination was part of the reason he hadn't gotten more opportunities. However, his prior track record, while pretty good, really wasn't screaming superstar and there are a LOT of other people there fighting for even backup jobs in the Greek leagues, to say nothing of even getting to ride the bench in the NBA.

[Sobeyet]

Wrathblood, on 22 February 2012 - 09:01 AM, said:

if they got the impression that he was serious about his academics (which his presence at Harvard suggests he probably was) then they wouldn't have bothered. I mean, if you *could* get into Harvard, are there ANY circumstances under which you would really go to, say, Arkansas instead if academics were a factor in even a minimal way?

I dunno about that, I think it might be the other way around. If he was offered a scholarship to say Cal (hometown), UCLA, or even Stanford, would he have still gone to Harvard? All 3 have much better basketball programs and would have given him a much better leap into the NBA, no one that's serious about playing in the NBA goes to Harvard. And the 3 have some damn good econ programs (he only had a 3.1 at Harvard anyway, dude's definitely bright, but doubt he's a super nerd). Obviously he wouldn't go to Kansas or anything like that - not good enough to be recruited by a top-tier program and not enough academics. I guess it depends on how he gauged his odds at making the NBA and how much push he got from his parents.

Wrathblood, on 22 February 2012 - 09:01 AM, said:

Plus, being undrafted into the NBA isn't that uncommon. The NBA draft only lasts 2 rounds so only 60 players get picked. That sounds like a lot, but there are 64 teams in the NCAA tournament each year (which Harvard never reached during Lin's time) and another 32 go to the NIT (which Harvard also never reached during Lin's time) providing players (and some, like Duke, or Chapel Hill, are threats to put in more than one) plus amazing high school students all fighting for those 60 slots so the competition is incredibly tough.

Oh sure, and teams can only carry 15 players on their roster so there's constant turnaround. But that's the thing about the NBA draft, it's supposed to be the more "predictable" of the drafts. Baseball they stay in the minors for ~3 years and 1/3 of pitchers blow out their arms anyway and football the nature of the game changes drastically from college to pro (offenside/defensive coverages) so it can be a crapshoot. There are definitely busts in the NBA (poor Greg Oden), but if you have all-star ability chances are you'll get picked. Now Lin doesn't have the kind of freakish athleticism of some of the other recent first-round PGs - he'll never be a Derrick Rose, John Wall, or Kyrie Irving. But the guy can create his own shot, dribble penetrate, and makes decent outlet passes. How do you not see that?! Even if you just bring him in for a work out?

Wrathblood, on 22 February 2012 - 09:01 AM, said:

People sometimes point to him having similar to, but better, stats than Jrue Holiday (who was at UCLA when Lin was at Harvard, was a first round pick by the Sixers and starts for them) but its really not an apples to apples comparison. They're the same size, and in 2008-2009 (which happened to be both of their best college years) had reasonably similar numbers for assists, rebounds, blocks and steals, though Lin was mostly ahead, and Lin outscored him 16 ppg to 9 ppg. But its not an apples to apples comparison, because not only was it Lin's junior year vs Holiday's freshman year, but also Holiday was playing against VASTLY tougher competition.

Well also Jrue was a PG that played SG because of Collison, Lin was a SG that is learning to play PG now. And I'm sure Lin's gotten a lot better over the past few years - having a full 4 years of college gives him more time to develop and learn, no brainer that he's closer to his potential than a 19-year old one-and-done.

Wrathblood, on 22 February 2012 - 09:01 AM, said:

Harvard's basketball stats page is freaking amazing, btw, superior to ESPN.com in some regards.

They're just jealous of MIT's Sloan Conference. But the MIT kids would be more likely to build basketball playing robots than actually playing themselves.

Wrathblood, on 22 February 2012 - 09:01 AM, said:

So, yeah, I mean, the guy's looking like a god and a lot of things had to line up right for him to get the chance and its entirely possible discrimination was part of the reason he hadn't gotten more opportunities. However, his prior track record, while pretty good, really wasn't screaming superstar and there are a LOT of other people there fighting for even backup jobs in the Greek leagues, to say nothing of even getting to ride the bench in the NBA.

Oh, you definitely didn't get anything that said superstar, even with the ridiculous numbers he's put up so far I still wouldn't call him a superstar (playing at a superstar level, sure). And there are a lot of competent-or-better PGs in the league right now. But if you're really good at one thing or decent at a couple of things you should be able to hold down a spot in the rotation. Taking Lin out of the picture, if there was a PG that could create his own shot, make the right passes, play sub-par defense, and have a high-turnover rate, I would think most teams would find a spot for him, backup or not. The Lakers would take that over Fisher's corpse in a heartbeat.

[Wrathblood]

Well, you mean "do all those things competently at the NBA level". Being able to create your own shot playing against, say, Dartmouth, is a very different skill set from being able to create your own shot when you're guarded by the pros.

UVA's men's team basketball team has had a pretty good season, getting as high as 15th or so, though they're currently sitting at 25th (when your schedule ends with 4 games out of 7 against UNC and Florida State, you're gonna dip a bit) largely because of Mike Scott, a 5th year senior who is absolutely carrying the team, 17 ppg and 8 rpg despite being pretty much the only offensive threat on the whole team. So, Scott is clearly the best player on a team that'll probably end up as a 5 seed in the NCAA tournament and I'd say has a 50/50 chance of making it to the sweet 16. But I'd also say that he's *at best* a second round pick because he's a 6'8" power forward and someone like Carmelo Anthony would just devour him. So, star and backbone of a very good team in college versus maybe a backup in the NBA if he gets lucky.

I would agree that college just doesn't seem to produce all that many pure PGs for some reason (maybe like being a healer in WoW, just not as glamorous as dpsing) and ones who can both produce and distribute are valuable. But Lin wasn't really all that hot at creating in college, at least according to his assist totals. He topped out at 4.4 apg and this was on a team that regularly scored 70+ per game. That's not awful for college, but you'd kinda expect more out of a good pg.

To see what can happen to a mediocre basketball program when a budding star shows up on its doorstep and how it can turn out, I point you to the history of Cindy Blodgett. Went to a decent sports high school in Maine which promptly won 4 straight state championships (its first ever) with her as pg. She then went to UMaine which was maybe like 15-12 the year before she got there, and she led UMaine to 4 straight NCAA appearances (its first ever).

She was then drafted in the first round of the WNBA and went on to... never start a game. Accumulated a total of 28 assists over her entire pro career. She had trouble with injuries, but worse, she was stuck on the teams that already had arguably the best PGs in the WNBA. So, sometimes even someone who seems like they'd be on the fasttrack for stardom just never get a break.

On the other hand, its possible she didn't have the right attitude or something. She went into coaching, and was just fired from being the head women's basketball coach from UMaine after leading the team to a glorious 24-94 cumulative record which had to have been pretty agonizing for everyone involved.

[Wrathblood]

Re: picking schools, its hard to say. One of Mrs Wrath's cousins was an extraordinary swimmer. Did well at junior nationals, recruited by major schools, etc. But she was also a smart kid and while swimming doesn't quite have the income potential of basketball, there's still a well established career path for coaching.

She and I had a number of chats about what she wanted to do. If she really loved swimming, she could have gone to an absolute top-tier swimming school, competed at the national level shooting for the Olympics, and then gone onto a career in coaching. Or she could leverage her swimming into admission to a great academic school (she wasn't going to get into a great school on her academic merits, but good grades and 1300s on the SAT combined with the swimming might well have gotten her into an Ivy League school. Harvard doesn't give athletic scholarships, but being amazing at a sport is a huge boost for getting in, as long as you're at least in the ballpark to begin with). It basically came down to what she wanted to do with her life. She ended up going kind of a middle route, picking a good academic school (George Washington) that was trying (but failed) to upgrade its swimming program. She had quit swimming by her junior year, but got good grades, went to medical school and became a doctor so everything turned out well for her, though one might nitpick that going to a Yale and doing the same thing would have looked a lot better on her resume.

I'm just pondering Lin's thinking. Getting all stereotypical, I would say it wouldn't be every asian family that would encourage a son to screw that pointless academic nonsense and go play hoops. Even if your heart is set on playing in the NBA, the odds of even your average HS state champ, UCLA starting PG making it there is pretty slim and while UCLA is a superb school academically, its still not Harvard (which its possible the only reason he was able to get in was because of the basketball).

As a minor aside, I didn't realize he went to Palo Alto HS. I spent time on their campus ages ago when I was doing Academic Decathalon, and that might be the most beautiful high school campus I've ever seen. Stuyvesant's "new" campus is nice and all, but seriously, this school is amazing.

Edit - Oh, I didn't realize Lin started as an SG who switched to PG. That makes him less exceptional but it makes his stats make more sense.

[Sobeyet]

Wrathblood, on 22 February 2012 - 11:23 AM, said:

Well, you mean "do all those things competently at the NBA level". Being able to create your own shot playing against, say, Dartmouth, is a very different skill set from being able to create your own shot when you're guarded by the pros.

Oh sure, and that goes back to my point about how good these guys are. Any "decent" athlete can do well at the HS level, it takes quite a significant level of talent to play Division 1 in college (<1%), and then even more so to play pro (<0.01%). And even if you have that kind of talent, you need the opportunity, work ethic, health, etc. so the odds are really stacked against you. (And then there are people like LeBron or Kobe that were pretty much put on the planet to play, the stuff they can do against NBA competition is just ridiculous).

But really, even at the college level there aren't that many people that can create their own shot (which is why I don't watch much college, the quality's just not there). Take a guy like Kemba Walker. Obviously he had a drastically better college career than Lin (and it's not even close), but in terms of skill set they seem fairly similar. They can both drive, similar athleticism, Lin's a little taller/bigger. Walker's a decent PG and while he'll never be a perennial all-star, he should have a decent career for himself (and that's where Lin will probably end up settling down in, though he'll probably get more all-star invitations than he deserves because of the fan vote). And of course Lin did drop 30 on the Huskies in CT his senior year. But yeah, given the ability he's showing now it is odd that he didn't just torch the Ivy League (he was one of the best players, but not to the extent he "should" have been), not sure if it was the offense they were running, coaching, aggressiveness on Lin's part, or he just wasn't as good (which is definitely true to some degree, but it seems kind of drastic).

Wrathblood, on 22 February 2012 - 11:23 AM, said:

I would agree that college just doesn't seem to produce all that many pure PGs for some reason

Time probably has a lot to do with it, it's hard to really develop those kind of skills in 1-2 years. And most programs recruit athleticism over fundamentals anyway, and when you've been the best athlete on the court your entire life up to that point, you don't really have a mindset of deferring to anyone. Way more likely to see a player like Westbrook than Rondo. Though Paul only played 2 years and he's the best pure PG of my generation (and has an argument for all-time), so shrug.

Wrathblood, on 22 February 2012 - 11:52 AM, said:

I'm just pondering Lin's thinking. Getting all stereotypical, I would say it wouldn't be every asian family that would encourage a son to screw that pointless academic nonsense and go play hoops. Even if your heart is set on playing in the NBA, the odds of even your average HS state champ, UCLA starting PG making it there is pretty slim and while UCLA is a superb school academically, its still not Harvard (which its possible the only reason he was able to get in was because of the basketball).

Well it's just from wikipedia, but supposedly his "dream schools" were UCLA and Stanford:

Quote

Lin sent his résumé and a DVD of highlights of his high school basketball career to all the Ivy League schools, University of California, Berkeley, and his dream schools Stanford and University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).^[18][19][7] The Pac-10 schools wanted him towalk-on, rather than be actively recruited or offered a sports scholarship. Harvard and Brown were the only teams that guaranteed him a spot on their basketball teams, but Ivy League schools do not offer athletic scholarships.^[20]

Harvard coaches feared that Stanford, close to Lin's home,^{[note 2]} would offer Lin a scholarship, but it did not, and Lin chose to attend Harvard.^[23] "I wasn't sitting there saying all these Division I coaches were knuckleheads," Diepenbrock said. "There were legitimate questions about Jeremy."^[24] Joe Lacob, incoming Warriors' owner and Stanford booster, said Stanford's failure to recruit Lin "was really stupid. The kid was right across the street. [If] you can't recognize that, you've got a problem."^[25] Kerry Keating, the UCLA assistant who offered Lin the opportunity to walk-on, said in hindsight that Lin would probably have ended up starting at point guard for UCLA.^[26]

But Asian parents or not, the "smart" move statistically speaking is to assume that your kid is going not going to make the pros and to make sure he/she has the best fallback plan possible, and a Harvard degree ranks pretty high up on the list of Plan Bs. I'm not nearly as risk averse as most people so I'd probably let my kids do whatever the hell they wanted.

[Wrathblood]

"Being able to create your own shot" has always struck me as something that, while you can see it in action, is also one of those things that's largely visible with hindsight. I mean, no one scores in Div I purely on the strength of having an amazing pg. There just aren't very many pgs and the fg to assist ratio doesn't really say that's what's going on. So what happens is that some guys have the speed and moves to get it done at the college level but not at the pros, and, barring people who actually work in basketball I think its pretty hard to tell the difference.

Coaching, however, makes a huge difference. Harvard was a pretty high scoring team while he was there, but that doesn't mean that his coach wasn't effectively holding him back by emphasizing all that teamwork crap. If he'd been on a Westhead Loyola Marymount team, he might have been scoring 40 ppg, whereas even Jordan couldn't score 20 ppg playing for Dean Smith.

[Sobeyet]

Wrathblood, on 22 February 2012 - 01:38 PM, said:

"Being able to create your own shot" has always struck me as something that, while you can see it in action, is also one of those things that's largely visible with hindsight. I mean, no one scores in Div I purely on the strength of having an amazing pg. There just aren't very many pgs and the fg to assist ratio doesn't really say that's what's going on. So what happens is that some guys have the speed and moves to get it done at the college level but not at the pros, and, barring people who actually work in basketball I think its pretty hard to tell the difference.

Well athleticism is something anyone can spot and appreciate. If twitter existed in 2002 I doubt Tim Duncan would get the same response as say, Blake Griffin in 2012 (and Duncan's probably the best PF of all time). Some people like Kobe has/had both, he seems to add a new move every year and blends it seamlessly into his existing game. Though most college players can barely dribble with their off-hand, let alone use feints, jab steps, head fakes, etc. Lin doesn't have an eye-popping game, especially in the context of cone drills or something like that. And it was pretty obvious Lin could play after he dropped 38 on the Lakers (and probably had a more complete game on Sunday against a much better Mavs team). But the "people who actually work in basketball" are the ones that are supposed to see this stuff. Pretty much every Asian person I know (and their grandma) has seen the highlights of that summer league game against John Wall from 2 years ago:




And the 30 pt game against UConn:




Race probably did have a little to do with it, maybe not blatant racism but subconscious perception on what he was capable of, expectations, etc.

[Wrathblood]

Eh, huge things get missed reasonably often. In his first game of his only season of college baseball, Albert Pujols both hit a grand slam AND turned an unassisted triple play, which are not things people manage to do very often, much less in the same game, and hit .461 on the season, yet was only drafted in the 13th round. It happens.

However, if they didn't even TRY (as the wikipedia article pretty strongly suggests) then that's just incompetence or, more likely, racism. I mean, if Stanford didn't even bother scouting him when he went to HS at most 10 miles away someone should be retroactively fired.

[Sobeyet]

Wrathblood, on 22 February 2012 - 04:25 PM, said:

Eh, huge things get missed reasonably often. In his first game of his only season of college baseball, Albert Pujols both hit a grand slam AND turned an unassisted triple play, which are not things people manage to do very often, much less in the same game, and hit .461 on the season, yet was only drafted in the 13th round. It happens.

At the MLB factory known as Maple Woods Community College? But baseball probably has the greatest fundamental disparity between the majors and minors/college. There's really no way for hitters to acclimate themselves to the speed and movement of major league pitching. It's rare to see a 20-year old even in double-A ball, let alone triple-A or the majors (except for once-in-a-generation talents like A-Rod).

Wrathblood, on 22 February 2012 - 04:25 PM, said:

However, if they didn't even TRY (as the wikipedia article pretty strongly suggests) then that's just incompetence or, more likely, racism. I mean, if Stanford didn't even bother scouting him when he went to HS at most 10 miles away someone should be retroactively fired.

Well bias is a part of human nature, people pigeonhole since it's quicker and easier. It's the college application test, if you're reviewing thousands of apps a year you're going to filter consciously or subconsciously. 6'6", 42" vertical, stuff like that catches your attention in a positive way, Asian maybe in a not so positive way. Same goes for female mechanics or black mathematicians. The good thing about stuff like this is that it creeps into the national mindset and subverts the negative expectations (to a degree).

Asians as a whole are doing fine in a financial/productive sort of way, but in terms of general culture there's pretty much zero representation. There's a sense of xenophobia/otherness when it comes to Asians that can create social barriers. The women are seen as submissive sex dolls, men are seen as emasculated caricatures (in terms of social currency, Asian men and Black women are on the bottom of the totem pole). On a personal level, there's no denying it's affected the way I perceive myself and present myself to others - at least a small amount of my braggadocio is from refusing to be the sniveling little Asian kid. But Asians aren't entirely free from blame either, the conservative/insulated nature of a lot of Asian cultures contributes to it (there are some hardcore Asian racists out there). Not entirely fair to lump in the kid who was born in LA and grew up in Palo Alto with them, but shit happens.

[Sobeyet]

So I'm pretty much spending the day counting down to the Knicks/Heat game, and I got the bright idea to go to the Heat game on 4/15 at the garden. Then I saw the prices: http://www.stubhub.c...5-2012-1265602/

I know Lebron's a hot ticket, but between that and Linsanity it's gouge city. A 4-500% markup is common, and even the nosebleeds are going for 2-300 bucks. Lol at the 15-20k for courtside seats each, I could have taken 3 buddies to watch the Giants win the Super Bowl for one of those tickets. The rinkside, first-row seats I got for the Rangers/Capitals playoff game I got last year were cheaper than a good seat for this game (and it's 7 weeks away, hardly last minute). If the Knicks keep this up I might have to buy season tickets for next year as an investment: http://www.slate.com..._economics.html