If you read 8Asians.com, you’ve probably already come across a Jeremy Lin fan video highlighting the injustices against opponents flagrantly fouling him titled, Jeremy Lin: Too Flagrant Not to Call and his opponents not getting called a foul. I’ve watched the video, and it’s not pretty.
I was surprised that THE New York Times covered the issue and even more surprised by who put the video together:
“Hsiu-Chen Kuei waited until her husband and three sons had gone to bed one night recently before surreptitiously beginning work on an ambitious personal project.
As they slept, Kuei, 48, a stay-at-home mother from San Jose, Calif., hunkered down at her computer and began poring over highlight videos featuring Charlotte Hornets guard Jeremy Lin, her favorite N.B.A. player. She fumbled around on Final Cut Pro, a video-editing program, splicing together the specific clips she had sought. She did this for six straight nights, three hours each night.
On April 5, Kuei uploaded her finished product, a six-and-a-half-minute video, to YouTube. She called it “Jeremy Lin: Too Flagrant Not to Call.”Piecing together clips of Lin over the years getting whacked in the face, clotheslined, bleeding, tumbling to the floor — all without ever drawing a flagrant foul — Kuei tried to convey that Lin, an American-born son of immigrants from Taiwan, was the victim of excessive physicality from opponents and insufficient protection from the league and its referees.
To Kuei’s surprise, the video soon attracted close to a million views, capturing the attention of basketball fans around the world and the eye of the league — even if no one quite knew who was behind it.”
The NBA did respond to a fan email regarding the video. Basically, the NBA said that:
Flagrant Foul given the full circumstances, angles and comparables from past games. Referees do make mistakes, which means they miss calls that should have been made. When that occurs, we collect the data and provide referees with feedback to ensure improvement.”
I read the New York Times article online, so I was even more surprised to see the Jeremy Lin article made it to the print edition’s FRONT PAGE! (at least of the National Edition). A friend of mine (h/t to Vitus), sent me this photo of his print edition of the Times, where the article headline is Fan’s Video Calls Foul on How N.B.A. Treats Asian-American:
I can’t say I watch enough Jeremy Lin these days to make a judgement on the officiating, since I mostly follow my local and awesome team, the Golden State Warriors. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was unconscious bias against Lin on not calling fouls against his opponents. Too bad the Warriors traded Lin a long time ago – would be great if he returned.
