Talking Points: Free agent Linsanity

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Since Lin-quiring minds want to know, the question becomes: Where is Jeremy Lin going to end up next year? He’s a restricted free agent, so any offer a team makes can be matched by the Knicks, which he should hope they do.

It’s not just because New York would be more of a contender than, say, the Rockets, who are reportedly wooing the point guard. But because New York was the climate that helped breed Lin into the biggest sensation in sports earlier this year.

The endorsements would be astronomical. The fanfare would be maximized. And even if he regresses into an average NBA point guard, his meteoric rise in the Big Apple will keep him appreciated for years to come.

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The author of these Talking Points brought this up in the newsroom Tuesday afternoon, and the reaction was strong enough to warrant publishing. On the night of the NBA Draft, the subject of Greg Oden came up while Blazers general manager Neil Olshey was fielding questions, and Olshey defended Portland choosing the big man.

Olshey contended that Oden “wasn’t a miss,” but rather just somebody that got hurt, and if one were to look at his contributions while healthy, would see that he would have been a transcendent big man.

Feel free to punch a steel door.

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Interesting column from ESPN’s Rick Reilly on Tuesday regarding all the unnecessary delays in baseball, such as batters’ silly rituals between pitches outside of the batter’s box. Basically, Reilly was saying that baseball should and could be a lot faster. Fans argued that his propensity for golf contradicted his point, to which Reilly responded that golf on television was nothing but continuous strokes.

Truth is, as silly as it sounds, golf shows just about as much action per camera shot as any sport out there.