“Throughout Lin’s six years in the N.B.A., we have continuously witnessed Lin as the recipient of numerous hard fouls with unnecessary and excessive force by other players,” the letter reads. “In these cases, the referees either didn’t make the calls or made incorrect calls.”
The N.B.A. responded with a statement. It was a notable victory — a grass-roots, fan-led project receiving acknowledgment from a major sports league — but the N.B.A. stood by the handling of all the plays highlighted in the video. Fans who wrote to the league appeared to receive the same form letter encouraging them to read rules categorizing different fouls. An identical statement was forwarded to any media outlets seeking comment.
“While some of the plays in the video involved hard contact, none was subsequently deemed a Flagrant Foul given the full circumstances, angles and comparables from past games,” the statement reads.
Kuei and her partners found the league’s response disappointing and unsatisfactory. “They are telling us to look at the rules, but it doesn’t seem like they are looking at the rules,” said Jenny Wei, who was born in Taiwan and now is a stay-at-home mother in Los Angeles. She composed the first draft of the letter. “I feel like they think we’re not smart or we don’t know basketball. We know basketball.”
The video eventually made its way to Lin, who expressed his appreciation for the group’s efforts after the Hornets game on Sunday night. In an interview with Dennis Tsai, a reporter for Apple Daily of Taiwan, Lin said he agreed with the premise of the video, even as he acknowledged that there was little about the situation that he could control.
“I’m just psyched that the fans are trying to do something about it and trying to push the league to at least review some of the stuff,” Lin said.
The three fans involved in the project — Kuei, Wei and Koon-Ping Chan, a third fan from Bayside, Queens, who was born in Hong Kong and helped edit Wei’s draft — have never met in person, but they interact almost daily in online chat groups. They all began following Lin after his breakout season with the Knicks in 2012 and now belong to the fervent community of Lin supporters that spreads over multiple continents.
They did not attempt to establish a case through statistics because data cannot capture what was at the heart of their complaint. It was the brutality of the individual fouls, not the overall tally, that angered them. “Did you see those fouls, how his neck snapped back?” Wei said.
Critics of the video have suggested similar ones could be made about other players. Kuei, who was born in Taiwan, does not disagree with that notion and does not feel that it contradicts her view that Lin gets shortchanged. She said fans of other players should make their own videos.
“Through this, I just want to make sure the rules apply to every player and players get protected by the rules,” Kuei said.
Though Kuei’s video does not attempt to speculate on the root cause of Lin’s perceived treatment, much of the ensuing discussion has gravitated toward Lin’s race.
When Yu Guohua, a first cousin of Jeremy Lin’s mother, a retired plastic factory worker who lives near Hangzhou on mainland China, learned of the video, he said, “Of course he’s being badly mistreated.”
State-controlled media in mainland China occasionally highlights what it portrays as unfairness to Asians in the West, and Yu was quick to attribute any unfairness toward Lin to such bias. “That is probably the cause,” Yu said.
Kuei was quick to note that neither the video nor the letter accused anyone of racism. But she and her partners said they understood why people might be drawn to such conclusions.
“I do think, in my mind, clearly at a minimum, we could say he’s being treated differently,” said Chan, 68, a former banker. “We want people to make up their own minds, to try to interpret it.”
Wei agreed. “I experience things as an Asian in America,” she said. “It’s there.”
Though the group has found the league’s response underwhelming, they have been invigorated by the reaction from other fans and the news media. The video, for instance, inspired a follow-up examination on Wednesday from the ESPN reporter Tom Haberstroh, who noted in his own short video that the 813 fouls that Lin had drawn over the past three seasons represented the highest total for a guard — and the third highest number for any position — without a flagrant foul.
“That proved it,” Wei said of the report, laughing. “We’re not crazy.”
Kuei said she had more hard fouls in mind to use for a video sequel, if she determines it is necessary. For now, she will watch the playoffs carefully to see if Lin gets any calls from the referees. And just as important, she will divert some of her attention back to other issues she left unattended while defending her favorite player.
“I haven’t filed my tax returns yet,” Kuei said with a sigh. “I spent too much time on the video.”
Open Season on Jeremy Lin? In Video, Fan Highlights Hard Fouls – The New York Times.
Source: Open Season on Jeremy Lin? In Video, Fan Highlights Hard Fouls – The New York Times