'Make me believe in Linsanity again'
Sidelined during the play-offs with injury, time is running out for Asian point guard who has cheaper, better players nipping at his heels
I have a friend whose nickname is the "General", so called because of his propensity to command us to drink shots and chase girls. When we were children, the "General" used to mail-order VHS tapes of every Bulls game from some shady outfit in France because that was the only way he could watch Michael Jordan in Hong Kong.
Not the Jordan that showed up on highlight reels and the annual Bulls championship video, but the everyday Jordan, the one who showed up every minute of every game, whose genius was in every play, in the stutter step before the dunk or the shoulder fake before the turnaround. The "General" loves basketball, only slightly less than he loves his wife.
He is also half-Taiwanese, half-American, and an all-point guard. In high school, he got cut from the team a couple times and when he made it he struggled at first. But injuries to other players got him into the rotation and by mid-season he was our starting point guard, our floor general.
So when a certain Taiwanese-American point guard blew up last February after getting cut from a couple of teams and struggling to stay on the Knicks' roster, the "General" went Linsane.
He, like me and millions of others, could not get enough of Jeremy Lin: we scoured YouTube for every highlight or interview, we signed up for an NBA league pass, we ordered jerseys online and asked our friends to bring back T-shirts from New York.
"He has God on his side," the "General" said, during the game against the Wizards when Lin made his first dunk. "This guy, if he stays at even half this level, is going to be around a long time."
