Jeremy Lin is an NBA player who, at present, is having phenomenal success and is a person of deep religious faith. In his desperation to manufacture his latest column, Mr. Brooks takes Mr. Lin as his subject of a very unflattering and desperate attempt to nullify Mr. Lin's aspiration to serve god and to be a NBA player. It makes Mr. Brooks seem as small a person as he is. Please read Mr. Brooks condescending and pompous meditation on the world of major league sport, heavily garnished by the 'Great Jewish Theologian' Joseph Soloveitchik identified as 'our best teacher' in the matter of the incommensurable worlds of faith and worldly success, as determinative. Can the critical reader of Mr. Brooks take this as indeed serious? How quickly can we forget the long list of manufactured apologetics for The Free Market and it's natural supremacy in the moral and political world? But let me quote in full from the devastating reply by Matthew Carnicelli of Brooklyn, New York, whose understanding of Mr. Lin's actual world in the NBA and its imperatives is hard to rebut :

"David, perhaps you're not a basketball fan, inasmuch as you missed the most obvious connection between Lin's religious faith and his success with the Knicks.

Lin is a point guard. By definition, a point guard's role on the court is to selflessly yet skillfully distribute the ball, in the process improving his teammates' opportunity for success. Because Lin embraces the traditional selfless role of the point guard, and seeks to empower his teammates rather than merely himself (take that, Ayn Rand!), his teammates play harder – and their collective performance can literally transcend the sum of their individual talents. This is what has been happening with the Knicks over the last two weeks.

When the player manning the point guard, however, aims primarily at individual glory and attention, rather than selfless distributive transcendence, his can amass gaudy personal statistics and wealth – while his team inevitably sinks to the bottom of the NBA standings, as did the Knicks under a talented but less-than-enlightened Stephon Marbury.

Indeed, David, I would further argue that the greatest NBA talents, the true "franchise talents" all lift their teammates games in roughly similar fashion – and intuitively understand that individual glory is ultimately hollow, and often fleeting, unless collective glory ultimately accompanies it."

Political Observer