Jeremy Lin has a fan in Denver

Well, that was fun. But probably not for Carmelo.

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I will occasionally watch an NBA game that the Nuggets aren’t playing in; but not very often. Unless it’s the playoffs. Otherwise, it has to be one of those “everybody is talking about” premier match ups – like the one tonight between the Lakers and the Knicks. 

I tuned in for that one.

I will admit that I was watching with one eye on Twitter the whole time and while switching over to Altitude during the commercials to see the Avalanche game. But I was watching. I caught the fever.

Kobe Bryant has always amazed me. I know I am supposed to hate him but he is just one of those athletes who is so fiercely dedicated to the game he plays that I can’t help but find him inspiring. I like how pissed off he gets and how he gets super hot shooting the ball. I’ve watched him do that against the Nuggets a million times.

Don’t call me a Kobe fan. I’m an admirer. 

I would have loved to have seen him face Carmelo Anthony at the Garden. I didn’t get to, though. What I did see was even better.

I’m not up on the NBA as a whole the way I am the NFL. I have never played fantasy basketball; that’s why. I will admit that I knew very little about Jeremy Lin other than thinking that he still played for the Warriors.

I am familiar enough, though, to know a beautiful thing when I see it. His performance tonight was breathtaking.

This nobody, this kid that everybody labeled a backup, made the night his own on the biggest of stages. Beautiful. I can only imagine what that must have felt like for him.

That’s the beauty of sports, isn’t it? Not just enjoying what you are seeing on the screen but imagining how it would feel?

Speaking of feelings, Kobe was seething. His lower jaw jutted out and you could tell that is was bothering him that this punk was taking his spotlight.

Lin found that zone that they talk about.

He may never do it again. Jeremy Lin may become dust tomorrow and still he would have made his mark on the sports landscape. If he flounders there will stories about how he floundered. If he continues to have nights like this one he will be the most unlikely of superstars.

The best part? Carmelo Anthony had to sit in a folding chair and a suit and watch it happen. All of New York, all of the world, turned it’s collective head and looked away from him. Including himself.

The apple in the Big Apple’s eye is Jeremy Lin.

Linsane.

Written by Colin D.