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Linsanity at Home on All-Star Weekend

Fri, 02/17/2012 - 20:35 — Carson Ingle
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Linsanity at Home on All-Star Weekend

Jeremy Lin has captivated a nation. He has been considered the main entity that has brought the Knicks back to respectability after years in the doldrums. People are even fabricating fake stories about how Kim Kardashian wants to date him. 

Now, Lin was invited to exactly where he needs to be, All-Star Weekend. For a while, it looked like he would not get the call to head to Orlando. Then it was announced that Lin would play a role in New York teammate Iman Shumpert’s dunk contest candidacy. 
That seemed to be too small a role for the NBA’s latest sensation. However, the critics decried that he has only played seven games so how could he get the honor to play in the Rising Stars Challenge. 
Those naysayers were clearly taking things to seriously. We are talking about the Rising Stars Challenge. It is not like anyone is putting Lin in the Hall of Fame yet, just an exhibition that is meant for the league’s fans. 
Adding Norris Cole alongside Lin to the pool of eligible players was a brilliant call. The NBA also maximized the publicity for the move by announcing it on the live draft on TNT. 
Yes, this year, the teams were not just rookies against second year players. Instead, Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley chose the squads. Again, not exactly the most sacred event that is steeped in tradition and is above change. 
Lin will be on Team Shaq, hopefully lobbing passes to Blake Griffin, the Big Aristotle’s number one pick. Just adding the man who was catapulted the Knicks to a seven game-winning streak add intrigue where interest normally does not reside. 
I am now of the opinion that one should be more excited about the Rising Stars Challenge then the events of All-Star Saturday.   It might make the frenzy around post-practice interviews crazy for us in the media, but I am willing to deal with that to experience Linsanity. 
Just seven games in to this coming out party, it is amazing what has occurred. In my lifetime, I have never seen a nation so captivated by one that has risen from such obscurity. 
Tebowmania cannot even match the hyperbole around Linsanity. The difference being that while the court of public opinion is deadlocked on Tebow, they are all in on Lin. 
We have yet to even see Lin play with his best teammate in New York, Carmelo Anthony. Yet the country gets to watch him lace it up with Griffin, Ricky Rubio, and a host of other burgeoning stars next Saturday. 
It is amazing to say that some guy named Jeremy Lin will increase the frenzy around All-Star Weekend. Two weeks ago we did not know him. 
Now, he might be the biggest star arriving to the NBA’s biggest stage in Orlando. 
Follow Carson on Twitter at twitter.com/#!/caingle

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