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This Week in Balls - February 13, 2012

The biggest story of the week was the emergence of Jeremy Lin for the Knicks, as well as the emergence of the Knicks, as well as the emergence of coverage of the Knicks.

Not everyone has the time or the inclination to follow sports full-time, or even real-time. Thankfully, we’ve combed the latest, greatest, and bestest stories from the world of sports this past week—Jeremy Lin, uhhhh, and some other stuff—so you can hobnob with the weird regular people at the office, your doorman, or your minions, if you have minions.

NFL:
Breaking news: Extremely talented and extremely cool wide receiver Randy Moss has announced, via Ustream, which is amazing, that he wants to return to the NFL for the 2012 season. Moss, who wears a five-o’clock shadow better than anyone save this guy, also happens to be one of the best wide receivers to ever play football, and should get a couple bites despite having not played since 2010. Football players are often well into their decline at 35, Moss’s age, but there’s a good chance that his prodigious skills—speed, a hell of a vertical leap, being a football genius—haven’t eroded: When guys are this good, aging profiles, rules, and precedent go out the window.

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Moss is one of the handful of legitimately engaging athletes in sports, examples of which can be seen here and here, and his re-entrance into football news is a good thing—even if he’s not that good anymore, he’ll certainly be entertaining. One can only hope he will sign somewhere in the NFC North that isn’t Green Bay, if only so he can piss Joe Buck off twice.

NBA:
Of course, the biggest story of the week was the emergence of Jeremy Lin for the Knicks, as well as the emergence of the Knicks, as well as the emergence of coverage of the Knicks. It’s been a hell of a story, with digital ink spilled pretty much everywhere. The gist of it: Lin, an evangelical, undrafted Asian-American, and the first Harvard man to play in the NBA since 1954, has produced at a historical level and brought a respectable winning streak to a heretofore shameful and terrible Knicks franchise. He has been one of the best players in the NBA since his debut, and now the Knicks are no longer figuratively unwatchable. (They remain literally unwatchable—Time Warner customers don’t get MSG, the team’s cable channel home.)

There’s been debate as to whether his success—unprecedented, though it has tapered off some—is a product of his team’s system, a small sample size, or if it is in fact real. The current Knicks iteration is all offense and push, and Lin’s Jordanesque point totals might not exist if he played, say, on a slow team like the Pistons. Then there’s the argument that anybody can have a few good—OK, outstanding—games, and that once teams and coaches catch up to him, he’ll fall back to earth. This is, after all, a player who the entire industry whiffed on.

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Of course, it’d be disingenuous to say he’s been a secret. In college, he was called both a “legit prospect” and “one of the top point guards in the country.” He was the best player on the best Harvard program in history—and the most scrutinized—so he was getting attention. Before the 2010 NBA draft, there was scattered thought that he had a chance to make an NBA roster, though only hometown cranks considered him a sure-fire bet. Despite some very impressive summer league performances—which, to be fair, generally don’t mean shit—scouts saw him as slow, and as a college senior, a bit old.

Cue to today, and both eggheads and evaulators agree that there’s indeed meat on this particular bone. Still, while the draft is an inexact science, it remains the lingua franca of the league. (Cole Aldrich was picked 11th in 2010, has played 45 minutes of basketball this season, and will earn three times as much money as Lin.) Lin will have to turn in a full season—or more—of strong performances like this before the fluke talk dies down, at least among the crustier set.

Weird Al:
Weird Al may sing Super Bowl halftime.

That is all.

@samreiss_

Previously – February 6