Mayweather Comments on Lin

Floyd Mayweather made some pretty stupid comments about Jeremy Lin and his meteoric rise to stardom...

Jeremy Lin is a good player,but all the hype is because he's Asian. Black players do what he does every night and don't get the same praise.

First of all, part of the reason he is so popular IS because he is asian. He's the first american of asian decent to play in the NBA. SO ya...that's part of it. But it's a small part. Another big part is that the guy was unknown, undrafted, in the D-league, and came out of Harvard...all add up to a spectacular story.
So even at this point we've discovered there's far more here than just an asian guy.

And then we get to the part of the statement that seems fairly racially motivated...and factually incorrect. NO ONE...and yes, I literally mean NO ONE in the history of the NBA has done what Lin's doing. He has scored more points in his first four games than Micheal Jordan, Shaq, and Allen Iverson. He's outscoring the best guys in the league now...and he's outscoring anyone in the history of the NBA, at least through their first four games. That's not something anyone does every night...and if anyone else was doing that, they'd be getting just as much attention.

Finally, as for the "he's popular cuz he's asian, if he was black he wouldn't be famous" mentality...I just don't get it. First of all, it's the NBA, the sport with the highest african american player percentage in the US. Secondly, there's a hundred stories about african american athletes overcoming adversity throughout their lives to dominate sports and become the icons of whole generations. Tiger Woods, The Williams Sisters, Michael Jordan...all of these people overcame something, became great at what they did, and propelled themselves to the stratosphere of popularity...if there really was this aversion to african american athletes, always praising others for lesser accomplishments, why are so many sports stars across generations African American?

Basically, I think Mayweather's comments are just ridiculous. Not only are they factually incorrect, and easily proven so by a quick google search, but they really downplay a guy who has done nothing but work for where he is. I don't know why he said what he did, but it really comes across as some kind of misplaced jealousy.