The sudden burst of Jeremy Lin onto the basketball world scene as swept the NBA world. Instead of dipping into the true causes of this newfound love for Lin, let's examine the numbers he's put up lately as a Knick:

It all started on February 4, 2012 – not even two weeks from today. The Knicks were pretty much the worst team on the map, next to the Bobcats and the Wizards, losing 11 out of their last 13 games. In New York's match up against New Jersey, Jeremy Lin was finally given some ample playing time, playing for a career-high of 36 minutes while coming off the bench.

ESPN, perhaps in an effort to suck in more non-sports fans, has, for the last year or so fallen into an incredibly annoying trend. They have to find an angle. It's not enough to simpy have a big game anymore. There has to be COVERAGE. And it has to last for hours and hours leading up to the actual game. The game, when broken down to actual action, generally only lasts 40-60 minutes (or in the case of baseball 5 minutes). The coverage ends up being 75% of the actual event. Then the post game analysis, the TV coverage of Twitter tweets (still can't figure that one out) the polls, and the next day interviews (don't listen if you enjoy english).

Most annoying though, within this trend is the pre-game human interest story and the post game explanation through science (yeah science). Enter Tom Rinaldi and John Brenkus... two guys who couldn't even touch the net on a good jumping day. Let's start with Rinaldi. This is the last guy you wanna see in your neighborhood. Trust me. If he's strolling the streets of Pleasantville, some serious shit went down. Dollars to donuts, either a tornado devastated your entire city, a blind amputee just took 2nd place in his 1a high school wrestling tournament or someone got raped. This guy should dress in a black cloak and carry a scythe. I think when the Bernie Fine story broke while they were still covering Sandusky, ESPN went into a panic. How was Rinaldi going to cover both stories at once?

I'm an avid sports fan. As a child, I read every boxscore of every game in the USA Today sports section. I listened to Jack Buck and Mike Shannon on a walkman every night calling St. Louis Cardinal games. I played 6 different sports, every single year growing up, and went on to play football in college. My life revolved around sports. And, to some extent, still does. After all, I am a immature boy man.

So, as I began to drift off to sleep just before the end of the first half of last night's snooze fest between YOUR New York Football Giants and Myra Kraft's New England Patriots, I started to worry about myself. What was happening to me? Had I lost my passion for the game that has given me so much? Why didn't I care if the Patriots could all of a sudden drive 98 yards against a Giants' defense that it couldn't do anything against the entire first half for a go ahead score and halftime lead? Perhaps because I've seen this scenario over and over and over again. Perhaps my subconscious knew that Perry Fewell's defense would change it's entire philosophy in the last 2 minutes of the half as all defenses seem to do. Maybe in the back of my mind, I knew New England would all of a sudden find a rhythm after 26 minutes of ineptitude.