Floyd Mayweather chimes in on Jeremy Lin and his renewed success with the New York Knicks.
Boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. tweeted yesterday that he believes the majority of the reason why Jeremy Lin is getting publicity is because he is Asian. His exact tweet was “Jeremy Lin is a good player but all the hype is because he's Asian. Black palayers do what he does every night and don't get the same praise.” The argument that was being discussed on ESPN’s First Take was whether or not Mayweather’s tweet was fair or foul. After hearing the conversation, the consensus was that Mayweather’s tweet was mostly foul but it did have a bit of truth to it.
First of all, the tweet was a bit out of line because the media doesn’t want to hone in on a story just because of race as that is not morally right and the media doesn’t want to get any negative publicity about the stories they are covering. Also, the analyst’s on First Take discussed how race has nothing to do with it because even though he is an Asian player and they don’t get much publicity, there are so many more story lines that are capturing the eyes of the world.
Lin, who is the first American-born player of Taiwanese or Chinese descent to play in the NBA has broken many records in his first 6 official starts. Dating back to when the NBA merged with the ABA back in the 1976 season, Lin has become the record holder of total points scored in a players first four starts with 109 points. This wasn’t even done by some of the all-time greats including Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and Shaq. Another record Lin broke was that he is the first player to score more than 20 points and have more than 7 assists in each of his first four starts.
Much more than the statistics Lin has been posting, the real story here is the fact that this kid was cut by two different teams at one time and was about a week away from being cut again by the New York Knicks. He has bounced around the league a bit since he was picked up and has even been demoted to the D-league which is the NBA’s developmental league and another way of saying that you’re not good enough to play with the big boys. Lin proved that statistic wrong and is the sensation of America…. Or should I say LINsation.
Getting back to Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s tweet about Lin’s race causing the majority of why he is being publicized is a conversation I would like to flip around. Let’s say hypothetically Lin was actually African-American, would he really be getting as much publicity? Of course we don’t want to think that the media is biased to a certain race and that is not what this is about. But the fact that the NBA has mostly African-American players in it makes other races a minority to the sport and the odds of having an Asian player with as interesting of a story as Lin has is about a million-to-one shot. But does that mean he should be getting more recognition than other players? I don’t think so because the truth of the matter is that if an African-American player was doing the same thing than yes he would be praised just as much as Lin has been. The fact that there are so few Asian players in the league makes it all the more interesting of a story and I think that is where the confusion lies.
What Mayweather tweeted about does have some truth behind it but the way he went about saying it and expressing himself did him no justice. This story isn’t about how the media doesn’t praise Black athletes for their hard work because we all know that they do; this story is just about how much of a fairytale ride Lin has had and if it will ever come to a stop. So even if Lin was African-American there is no doubt that he would be getting national recognition, it is the fact that he is Asian which makes it all the more interesting.
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