If Lin could do nearly 30 pts per game day in and day out, he'd be a Derrrick Rose MVP-level combo PG. C'mon, let's get real. To say that he needs to be at that level to be a legit All-Star is a bit farfetched as well. I'd think Lin would be borderline All-Star if he could keep his avg close to 20 PPG and around 6+ assists,ie something just a little better than where he is right now.
Boring article with very little of substance being said. I think Kang's writing is very aesthetic, but he tends to be long-winded.
Propping him up as a symbol, not as a basketball player. He seems to think that the collective perception of Asian-Americans rides on Lin's shoulders, which is dumb. Sure, we support him and it's cool to see and Asian-American succeed at the highest level, but it's not like we're waiting with bated breath for him to come and dispel all prejudices against us.
Jay Caspian Kang tends to talk a lot about himself when it comes to these articles about Asian athletes, but that's because it's so rare (less so today than before, but still) to see Asian men in traditionally masculine roles in American society. For Asians, it really is (was?) quite a revelation to see figures like Ichiro or Yao or Jeremy, and it's good to have someone like Jay Caspian Kang to write about it. He wrote the best article about Lin during Linsanity.
Guy sounds like he's not even a basketball fan let alone any kind of expert on Lin. Just a casual observer trying to write a pseudo-intellectual article on something he's very uninformed about.