One of the best stories in sports in the last 25 years Is the meteoric rise of Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin. His play has been nothing but “Linsational”. The big question is, “How did someone who can totally dominate games and be the key to 5 straight NY Knick wins, been un-drafted and cut by 2 other teams after short tryouts?” The answer is one that leaders and coaches need to keep stored in their memory bank. Lin, who scored more points (109) in his first four starts then any NBA player since the NBA-ABA merger in 1976-77, is the prototypical underdog. Not offered a college athletic scholarship, the son of two 5 foot 6 parents, Lin has always been dismissed because he did not fit the norm. In other words, Jeremy Lin’s success flies in the face of conventional wisdom.
Conventional wisdom would tell you that point guards need to be super quick, have great ball-handling skills and have competed at the highest level and dominated games. Conventional wisdom is just that -- conventional. If Steve Jobs would have accepted conventional wisdom, no one would be talking on their iPhone or reading this blog on their iPad. It is amazing to see so many teams draft or recruit players based on potential rather than how they play the game. Coaches and player personnel staff tend to create profiles and then put people in positions based on their projected abilities rather than results. Lin has always been a winner dating back to his High School state championship team in Palo Alto to his outstanding career at Harvard. How much value does being a winner and having success in every endeavor bring to the table? Apparently it does not mean much to the experts.
As a leader, I would encourage you not to fall into the trap that because everybody else is doing something, then that is the way things need to be done. Evaluate people and situations based on your own set of values and do not accept what everyone else is doing or saying as the gospel. Always remember that individuals who are successful tend to know how to create an environment where they will continue to be successful. Fortunately, Mike D’Antoni was forced to give Lin a real opportunity because of injuries and poor play of his anointed point guards. Tom Brady (199 pick in 2000) and Albert Pujols (402 pick in 1999 draft) are examples of superstars who were not highly valued yet have greatly surpassed other much more acclaimed contemporaries in the draft.
Jeremy Lin’s success probably does more to reinforce the Billy Bean’s Moneyball theory than any athlete of the modern era. Bean looked at every aspect of how baseball was played and how teams were put together. He rejected conventional wisdom and built a competitive franchise with limited resources while focusing on the realities of success rather traditionally accepted beliefs. Maybe Jeremy Lin will be the guy who opens the eyes of sports executives to build teams differently. Maybe he will make many leaders abandon stereotypical thinking?
That would be very “Lin-novative”. Will the Knicks continue to win with Lin playing the key role or will they fall back into the superstar mentality and give Amare and Melo the ball at the expense of the team. It should be interesting.
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