A few thoughts on Jeremy Lin

I’m not much of a sports fan, and I haven’t followed basketball for quite some time. A few weeks ago, I started hearing about a player for the New York Kicks named Jeremy Lin. Even then, I just heard blurbs, and didn’t read much further. I just didn’t care.

If I had told you that I didn’t notice he was Asian, I’d be lying. As a matter or fact, it was mentioned in a few stories, since there really haven’t been many high-profile Asian players in the NBA.

This week, the Jeremy Lin story took a turn in another direction. Rather than focus on athletic accomplishments, his story has been hijacked by perceived racism and hypocrisy.

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The Hamed Haddadi controversy: Are you kidding me?

I was checking out the headlines on Yahoo, when I saw a link to a story about two Los Angeles Clippers announcers who made some offensive remarks about Vancouver Grizzlies Center Hamed Haddadi. I hadn’t heard about this controversy, so I read the article to see what it was about. The story went on at length about how sorry announcers Ralph Lawler and Michael Smith were over their offensive remarks, how they apologized on-air, and directly to Hamed Haddadi before a Vancouver/L.A. game in the presence of three members of the Alliance of Iranian Americans.

It seemed like a serious situation, and as I read on, a transcript of the offensive exchange was at the end. Here it is:

Smith: “Look who’s in.”

Lawler: “Hamed Haddadi. Where’s he from?”

Smith: “He’s the first Iranian to play in the NBA.” (Smith pronounced Iranian as “Eye-ranian,” a pronunciation that offended a viewer who complained.)

Lawler: “There aren’t any Iranian players in the NBA,” repeating Smith’s mispronunciation.

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