Returning Home May Not Have Been the Wisest Choice For Jeremy Lin......

Jeremy Lin's NBA career got off to a good start when he played a solid 12 minutes in a 40 point blowout against the LA Clippers last week.   I'm sure that must have pleased the Warriors and the many Jeremy Lin fans out here in the Bay Area.

However, Lin's second game last Friday proved to be a little more rocky.  He came in with 4 minutes left in the game against the Sacramento Kings.  I personally don't know the score at the time but the Warriors were leading by a decent margin.  Unlike the Clipper game though, the intensity level was still high and that might have unnerved Lin.   He logged about 1 minute and 20 seconds of game time, turning the ball over three times and got yanked by Coach Keith Smart.

On the surface, it looked bad that Lin fared poorly.   However, in an article in the Contra Costa Times, Coach Smart took responsibility for putting Lin into a tough situation:

"Smart took the blame for the struggles of guard Jeremy Lin against the Kings. Lin played for just one minute, 21 seconds and had two turnovers. He looked out of sync. Smart said he put Lin in the game at the wrong time, when Sacramento was pressing to get back in the contest. It wasn't the best situation to put Lin into at this stage, Smart said."

Part of the reason Coach Smart may have put Lin in was because the Warriors fan started calling for him late in the fourth quarter.  This can be seen on the various highlights posted on YouTube.  While I'm not in Coach Smart's shoes, he probably let Lin play both to keep the fans happy and see how Lin could handle the situation.

However, I'm starting to think that Jeremy Lin returning home may not have been the wisest of choices for him.   Lin may have been better in Dallas (or some other city outside of California) where he could practice and work under the radar.

As is Lin is under the microscope more than your typical un-drafted rookie.  Lin is obviously from the Bay Area and has family and friends who will go to his home games.   Being Asian, Lin is drawing exceptional support from the Asian-American community as seen in the videos.    This kind of support is unheard of for a rookie and much needed for a guy who needs to work hard to prove that he belongs in the NBA.

But all of this can be seen as a negative as well.  It can be suffocating to try to live up to the expectations of all those who will be in attendance of home Warriors games this season.   I'm sure Lin is a realist but when you have thousands of fans cheering for you, it is awfully hard to ignore.  Being the perfectionist, he seems to be, I'm sure Lin wants to do well and is disappointed when he doesn't play well.

I hope Warriors fan temper their enthusiasm.  Let's cheer Jeremy Lin on but not go overboard.  It's funny that I probably annoy all of my friends via my various links, blog postings and Facebook postings on Jeremy Lin.   Yet, I have not attended any of the preseason games yet.  My hope is that Jeremy Lin will get plenty of practice time to develop.   Once the regular season rolls around, I hope to see Jeremy Lin out on the court for more meaningful minutes.

Good Time for Dance Music........

Sometime back while I was in college in the late 1990's, I met a classmate who did some DJ'ing on the side.  Thanks to this classmate, I started listening to various genres of dance music like Eurodance, Freestyle, House and Trance.  I hadn't realized it before but I'd always been a dance music fan.   I had listened to many 80's songs that were considered dance:  "Spring Love" (Stevie B), "Into The Grove" (Madonna), among many others.

In the late 1990's, there were various dance songs that I loved:  "Be My Lover" (La Bouche), "Another Night" (Real McCoy), "Rhythm of the Night" (Corona) and others. However, as the year 2000 rolled around, the trend went to more electronic / trance type songs.  After a while, all electronic music sounds the game and I stopped following the dance music market.

More recently, Far East Movement's "Like a G6" finally gained national airplay including two of our local "party" music stations so I started listening to radio again.  I was surprised to hear a load of dance type songs that caught my interest:

"Like a G6" - Far East Movement
"California Gurls" - Katy Perry
"Dynamite" - Taio Cruz
"DJ's Got Us Falling in Love" - Usher
"I Like It" - Enrique Iglesias

To me, it's great that artists are putting out these vocal dance songs.  Electronic Music has it's place but the best dance songs that I've ever listened to were from the 1980's.   While I don't think some of these recent releases will ever become classics like some of the 1980's stuff I like, it's good that there is still solid dance music coming out these days.