Lindigestion

To celebrate V Day, my fiancee and I decided to make a Rick Bayless recipe last night. Since she's a vegetarian and I am vehemently not so, we made the regrettable decision to do a mash up of a couple of Rick recipes, which resulted in spending double the amount of time preparing the food while drinking on empty stomachs and not eating until 10: freaking 30. The meal was (marginally) worth the effort, and we both sluggishly awoke this morning with foggy prosecco hangovers, which has now been coupled with acute indigestion (at least for me). Next year, screw it, we'll endure the two hour wait at Frontera and let Rick cook his damned stacked tortillas and chile-marinated potatoes his damn self.

While nursing my various ailments, I read the recap of the latest heroics of the Great Asian-American Hope, Jeremy Lin, who led the New York Knicks to their sixth straight win with a last second three pointer against the Raptors in Toronto last night. So "Linsanity" continues to tighten its grip around the throats of breathless sports fans. Whether Caucasian or Asian, American or Taiwanese, NBA fan or not,  so many have embraced this classic underdog story of the unlikely success of an Asian-American Harvard graduate thriving in a league full of decidedly non-Asian-American Harvard graduates. By now the irony of this whole situation has been commented on ad nauseum by sports journalists and non-sports journalists alike (the last professional barrier for an Asian with an Ivy League degree has been toppled, blah-ba-di-blah), so I will not add my two-cents to the op-ed heap.

But Jeremy Lin has revitalized the NBA; there can be no doubt about that. I can't remember the last time I actively sought out a recap of an NBA game, or checked a box score during a game. Hell, I even found myself Game Casting the Knicks/Lakers game on Friday night, just to check in on The Yellow Mamba's stats (and I'm glad I did, as he went for a career-high 38 points in outplaying Kobe Bryant and leading the Knicks to victory). David Stern, you lucky bastard. That black eye is hardly even noticeable anymore.

But let's try to keep at least one gnarled, crusty, yellowed toenail in reality during Jeremy Lin's Gleeful Jamboree. After all, while Lin is averaging 27 points and 8.5 assists per game during the Knicks' six-game win streak, he is also averaging over five turnovers per game (including eight TOs on two separate occasions). Six games is not nearly long enough to establish an accurate measure of an individual player's talents. And keep in mind that Lin has put up those gaudy stats without Carmelo "Me First" Anthony in the lineup. It will be interesting to see how well those two mesh once they are playing together on a regular basis. If all goes well, expect to see Lin's scoring average dip significantly and his assist numbers increase once 'Melo gets his groove back. Also, with Amare Stoudamire now back in the paint, the pressure on Lin to be a driving, slashing scorer is negated, so I anticipate that his turnover habit should be less of an issue.

Whatever happens, it's been a heck of a lot of fun watching The Yellow Mamba Show, and diehards and casual fans alike will continue watching for its duration.