Free Republic

A little more than a week ago, Jeremy Lin, then a third-string point guard for the NBA’s New York Knicks, found himself suddenly in the limelight after leading his team to a surprise victory over the New Jersey Nets. Before coach Mike D’Antoni put Lin in the game out of desperation, few Knicks fans, let alone anyone else, had ever heard of the Harvard grad already cut from two other NBA teams. But now, as he leads the Knicks on a seven-game-and-counting winning streak, everyone’s talking about Lin, his underdog story, and his faith. Sports commentators call him the “Taiwanese...

looks like Sarah Palin has gone Linsane, too, the New York Daily News reports: Linsanity became a bipartisan syndrome Thursday, as the former Alaska governor held up a Jeremy Lin shirt a day after President Obama praised the Knicks phenom. Palin, who played basketball in high school, posed with the highly coveted Lin gear outside her Manhattan hotel. Holding up the blue jersey with the already iconic No. 17 stenciled in orange on the back, Palin smiled, waved and signed a few autographs for fans.

The phenom explains his favorite musical acts to Fuse…

At one time, there was no more famous nor more sought-after basketball player than Allen Iverson. Dubbed "The Answer" to a Michael Jordan-less NBA, Iverson scored numerous record-setting deals and endorsements. In NBA salary alone, he earned about $154 million, according to basketball-reference.com. Now, a judge in Georgia has ordered Iverson to pay the $860,000 he apparently owes a jeweler, The Philadelphia Inquirer reports. The problem is, he didn't have the cash to pay the jeweler, so the judge has ordered his bank accounts commandeered and his earnings garnished. Rumors about Iverson's insolvency began as far back as 2010, when...

Even the president of the United States and the NBA commissioner are "all-Lin." Commissioner David Stern called New York Knicks guard Jeremy Lin's meteoric rise a "phenomenon," according to USA Today.

So what is Jeremy Lin thinking about following his sudden rise to stardom and the Lin-mania that's gripping the country? "I'm thinking about how I can trust God more," the 23-year-old New York Knicks guard told San Jose Mercury News. "How can I surrender more? How can I bring Him more glory?"

America can’t get enough of Jeremy Lin — nor can anyone else. Less than a week after leading the Knicks to a five-game winning streak, Taiwanese-American point guard is the most searched item on Baidu, a leading Chinese search engine, and he already has a quarter million followers on Weibo, a Twitter-like microblog. Everybody, it seems, is talking about the Harvard-educated wunderkind. In Asia at least, most comments seem pleased to see a high-profile Chinese-American in sports. Wang Lee-hom, a Taiwanese-American celebrity with over 13 million followers on Weibo, tweeted in Chinese Tuesday: “Perhaps you all guessed what today’s Weibo...

Boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. believes that New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin is getting national attention because of his race, rather than his exceptional play. "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," Mayweather wrote on his Twitter account on Monday afternoon. "Its OK for ESPN to give their opinion but I say something and everyone questions Floyd Mayweather," the boxer tweeted. "I'm speaking my mind on behalf of other NBA players. They are programmed to be politically correct...

Watch the interview after the Knicks beat the Raptors. Just like Tebow, Lin thanks his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. watch the YouTube

Everybody loves an underdog. And thanks to leading the New York Knicks to back-to-back wins for the first time in a month, Jeremy Lin has given his previously hopeless franchise a reinvigorated fanbase.WATCH VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS OF JEREMY LINBut there is more to Jeremy Lin than just being an undrafted Asian-American point guard out of Harvard. He is also a devout Christian that has previously declared that he plays for the glory of God and someday hopes to be a pastor.And based on his post-game interview last night, like Tim Tebow, Lin is not afraid to bring his faith to...

Miami Heat owner Micky Arison has had some bad financial luck of late. And the recent Costa Concordia cruise liner disaster only added to the billionaire’s woes. To say nothing of the lives lost during the tragic wreck. From the Guardian: “More than £300m has been wiped off the paper fortune of the multibillionaire boss of the company that owned the stricken cruise liner Costa Concordia. Micky Arison, the flamboyant chairman, chiefexecutiveand majority owner of FTSE 100 company Carnival, saw a large chunk of his $4.5bn (£2.9bn) holdings dissolve on Monday as the company’s shareslost almost a fifth of their...

President Barack Obama is beginning the week by hosting the NBA world champion Dallas Mavericks at the White House... In the evening, the president will attend a campaign event in the nation's capital.

DALLAS -- Delonte West won’t be going to the White House with the rest of his Dallas Mavericks teammates on Monday. “I’m banned from going to the White House, so I’m not going to make it,’’ West said after tonight’s 96-81 win over the New Orleans Hornets. “But I’m going home to D.C., I’m just not allowed to go to the White House. “That’s what happens when you make bad decisions in your life. You can’t go to the White House.’’

Miami - NBA superstar LeBron James is engaged to marry long-time girlfriend Savannah Brinson, who accepted his proposal at a lavish New Year's Eve dinner party in Miami. Brinson was the high school sweetheart of the Miami Heat playmaker and is the mother of James' two sons, seven-year-old LeBron Jnr and four-year-old Bryce. No wedding date was immediately set. The party was hosted by Dwyane Wade, James's Heat team-mate. The bash was also a birthday party for James, who turned 27 on Friday. As the clock struck midnight, Wade made a key off-court pass to James, handing over the engagement...

Philadelphia 76ers reserve guard Lou Williams has crafted a reputation for himself as a gunslinger. On Monday night, for example, Williams hit for 25 points, including three impressive 3-pointers, while taking 17 shots and dishing two assists in a loss to the Portland Trail Blazers. This week, though, Williams found himself on the other end of a real barrel.

The invitation to an exclusive party at Hollywood's famed Supperclub showed a relaxed, smiling young man welcoming patrons to a birthday celebration for Metta World Peace. At first glance, it appears to be a fundraiser for a deserving children's charity. But read further and it becomes clear that this is a party for the former Ron Artest — the first fabulous bash thrown by the Los Angeles Lakers forward who officially changed his name. But why Metta World Peace? "Metta is going to be the first name and it means like friendship, love and kindness," Artest told sports journalist Stephen...

The Los Angeles Lakers have agreed to a trade in which they will obtain New Orleans Hornets point guard Chris Paul for Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom, sources tell ESPN.com's Marc Stein.The Houston Rockets are the third team in the trade and will obtain Gasol from the Hornets in return for Luis Scola, Kevin Martin, Goran Dragic, and a 2012 first-round pick that Houston received from the New York Knicks, sources said. In Paul, the Lakers will obtain an All-Star and gold medal-winning U.S. Olympic Team member who has averaged 37.1 minutes, 18.7 points and 9.9 assists a game in...

Dwyane Wade unveiled his latest shoe line: Jordan Fly Wade 2 at Jose Marti Park Wednesday morning. With new shoes and a new (shortened) season, he said "I'm always hungry" for a championship. As for the shoes, which retail for $145 dollars, “I wanted something simple,” he said. “I like having a fresh pair [each game], I like to look good,” he said.

President Barack Obama‘s campaign is putting together a Dream Team of current and former NBA stars to help raise money for the president’s re-election effort. A fund-raiser, billed as the first-ever “Obama Classic Basketball Game,” is in the works. The line-up, according to campaign materials, is an eye-popping list of stars that Mr. Obama, a devoted recreational player, would no doubt like to join. The game will be played in Washington on Dec. 12 at a venue yet to be announced. The primo game package costs $35,000, which gets a donor “one bench seat & two courtside seats, shootaround with...

NBA players like Kenyon Martin and JR Smith will have to finish out the contracts they signed with their Chinese teams this summer, Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski reports. These players would have been sitting pretty if the NBA cancelled the entire season. But that didn't happen. And now they're stuck in China while everyone else gets to play NBA hoops. Here's what a source told Yahoo!: "They can play, get paid (in China), and return to NBA in March. Or they can not get paid, and return to NBA in March." Ouch. It looks like the Nuggets — who will...

Obama and family take in basketball game, chat with Bill Murray By Alicia M. Cohn - 11/26/11 05:12 PM ET President Obama and the First Family continued their post-Thanksgiving tradition by attending the Oregon State versus Towson game in Maryland on Saturday afternoon. Michelle Obama's brother Craig Robinson coaches the Oregon State University Beavers and the Obama family has watched his team play around Thanksgiving for the past three years. Actor and comedian Bill Murray, who was rooting for the opposite team, chatted with the Obama family before the start of the game. The Oregon State Beavers won 66-44. The...

Sometimes, dreams really do come true. The NBA and its players have reached a tentative agreement to end the five-month-long lockout and begin play on Christmas Day, as first reported by Ken Berger. Both players and owners must agree to a final vote of approval, but that is merely a formality at this point. After 16 hours of discussions Friday (and into Saturday morning), David Stern and Billy Hunter held a joint press conference just before 4 a.m. announcing the long-awaited handshake deal. “We’ve reached a tentative understanding that is subject to a variety of approvals…but we’re optimistic that it...

It didn't take long for at least one major business to react to the news that the NBA players had rejected the league's contract offer. MillerCoors, which spends heavily on sports advertising and has sponsorship deals with many NBA teams, including the Milwaukee Bucks, announced Monday it was withholding all payments to its NBA partners until a resolution to the lockout is found. Peter Marino, a MillerCoors spokesman, said the decision was made after players rejected the NBA's latest offer.

The Miami Heat's seven-times All Star Dwyane Wade has travelled the world during the NBA lockout but says he cannot wait to return to the court and get the lingering 'itch' of his team's defeat in last season's finals out of his system.

Ed Macauley, one of the NBA's first big stars who won a championship with the St. Louis Hawks and was traded by the Boston Celtics for Bill Russell, has died. He was 83. Macauley played for the Celtics from the 1950-51 season until 1955-56. He and the draft rights to future Hall of Famer Cliff Hagan were traded by Boston to the St. Louis Hawks on April 29, 1956, for the rights to Russell, a move that changed the power structure of the NBA. The Celtics went on to win 11 titles with Russell dominating in the paint. After the...

If Magic Johnson had known just how well he could live with HIV, he wouldn't have retired from the Lakers on Nov. 7, 1991. Johnson would never change what he did for the fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic when he publicly revealed his diagnosis to a stunned world. His courage that day, along with two subsequent decades of vibrant living, forever altered attitudes about the virus and its effects. Magic is simply glad the world knows such happy endings are possible with access to treatment and vigilance.

LeBron James may have canceled his NBA world tour plans to spend more time with his family. But he’s found plenty of time to recruit more stars to Miami. LeBron tweeted this Thursday: "Maybe @SteveNash in a Heat uni! So we can help each other get our 1st ring" Nevermind the fact that Nash is still under contract with the Phoenix Suns for one more season. Or that there’s no way this could work financially whenever the league resumes. If LeBron doesn’t think three all-star players are enough to win his first championship, he’s got bigger issues. This can’t make...

More than a few pundits have condemned miscreants in pro football, but the truth hurts their argument: NFL players are actually incarcerated less than the average citizen. The numbers don't lie. One in every 45 National Football League players (2.2 percent) is arrested. The national arrest rate is 1 in 23 (4.2 percent), according to the FBI in 2010. What does that mean? Technically, NFL players get in 47.6 percent less trouble than your average Joe. When Mike the butcher gets a DUI, it's not news. But when Steve the cornerback gets busted for public intoxication, it becomes a story....

Cant post link b/c of copyright complaints Gumbel said the commissioner wants to be seen as a "modern plantation overseer" and is "treating NBA men like they were his boys." He adds that Stern is trying to show that he can keep "hired hands in their place." Will he get fired like Hank Jr?

This year, we may not get to see Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers play. The people of Italy probably will. While the National Basketball Association lockout continues, Bryant is considering a deal worth $5 million for one year from the Virtus Bologna. He's not the only NBA player who might appear overseas. Deron Williams of the New Jersey Nets signed a contract with the Turkish team Besiktas, worth $200,000 per month. Many more top players are jumping overseas during the work stoppage. By contrast, Bryant signed a contract on April 2, 2010, with the Lakers for $87 million,...

NBA commissioner David Stern has cancelled the first two weeks of the season after owners and players failed to reach a new labor deal and end the lockout. The crisis began on July 1 when owners locked out the players after they failed to come to terms before the expiration of the old collective bargaining agreement.

Full disclosure: I am a strong supporter of the NRA. Not because I own a gun. I do not. Mine is a belief in the Second Amendment and the total unwillingness to give back any rights enumerated to me by the Constitution simply because nobody is willing to discuss the real issues. Having lived in Texas for almost 15 years, I know people with guns, people who use their guns to shoot deer and ducks and quail and doves. You know how you can tell real gun lovers? They rarely show you their guns — and never in anger or...

ATLANTA -- Police say former NBA player Javaris Crittenton has been charged with murder after a woman was shot on an Atlanta street. Police spokesman Carlos Campos says police have secured a murder warrant for the arrest of Crittenton, who played at Georgia Tech, in connection with the shooting death of 22-year-old Jullian Jones on Aug. 19. Campos said Crittenton is not in custody and is wanted. Police said Jones was walking with a group of people on the city's southwest side when she was shot.

Over the course of a 19-year NBA career, Shaquille O’Neal dominated the ball—and headlines. A little more than two months into retirement, Turner Sports’ newest hire is still dominating headlines. The latest news comes courtesy of his upcoming memoir with Jackie MacMullan, Shaq Uncut. Broken down chronologically, Shaq Uncut, published by the Hachette Book Group, is packed with O’Neal’s insight and anecdotes from his playing career. None of it is currently as relevant as Shaq’s take on what caused Rajon Rondo’s post-Perkins trade slump. From the book: In early March some of the guys went to the museum of Fine Arts...

Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant ...grabbed a man’s wrist and cell phone at St. Therese of Carmel in San Diego Sunday. The man claims Bryant thought he had taken pictures of him and his family on his cell phone, but returned the phone after discovering there were no pictures. The alleged victim claims he had to go to the hospital to treat a wrist injury.

In December 2003, Bruce Ratner, a real estate tycoon and part-owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team, held a press conference in New York City to announce his latest project, a 22-acre "urban utopia" called the Atlantic Yards. The idea was to transform downtown Brooklyn by erecting 16 office and residential skyscrapers, a luxury 180-room hotel, and a fancy new arena for the Nets. Standing by Ratner's side that day was the architect Frank Gehry, who told the press he was particularly excited "to build a whole neighborhood practically from scratch." It was a revealing statement. After all, the...

While local authorities kept mum, a spokeswoman for Michelle Obama confirmed Monday that the first lady is in the Willamette Valley this week to visit her brother, Oregon State University basketball coach Craig Robinson. An airplane carrying Michelle Obama — who is Robinson’s younger sister — touched down Monday morning at the Eugene Airport. Semonti Stephens, the first lady’s deputy communications director, said Obama is being accompanied on the trip by one of her two daughters. Stephens said she could not say which of the girls came to Oregon with her mother, or disclose the length of their planned stay....

More than 100 N.B.A. employees were laid off this week, underlining the league’s sense of economic distress as the owners and players haggle over a new labor agreement. All told, 114 positions — 11 percent of the league’s work force — were eliminated, primarily in New York and New Jersey, from nearly every division, including marketing, community relations, player programs, broadcasting and information technology. Most employees received the news Wednesday and Thursday. The layoffs came exactly two weeks after the N.B.A. locked out its players and froze operations. League officials said the two events were unrelated, although they are clearly...

We’ve seen a lot of rumors about NBA players going to play in Europe if the lockout continues into the fall. But this one beats them all. The Turkish team, Besiktas, that reportedly signed Deron Williams now has its eyes on Kobe Bryant. Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports has the story: [Beskitas coach Ergin] Ataman will travel to the United States with Besiktas management officials next week to trumpet the signing of Williams, and wants to arrange a meeting with Bryant and Bryant’s agent, Rob Pelinka, he told Yahoo! Sports on Thursday afternoon. “After we signed Deron, we started to...

On this episode of the Conscience of Kansas radio program I discuss Man Made Global Warning, Stupid Hollywood child names, and IPads in South Korea. We also discuss the history of the peace sign and the proper protocols for political bumper stickers this election season.

The NBA's thrilling season came with a high price tag. LeBron James' move to Miami and Dirk Nowitzki's title in Dallas couldn't hide a simple fact: Owners insisted they were losing money, perhaps $300 million this season, and they weren't interested in subsidizing a system they felt guaranteed they would keep losing more. So the NBA locked out its players Thursday night, a long-expected move that puts the 2011-12 season in jeopardy and comes as the NFL is trying to end its own work stoppage. The NBA lockout began at 9:01 p.m. PDT. It will last until players and owners...

LOS ANGELES -- Los Angeles Lakers forward Ron Artest wants to change his name to Metta World Peace. Artest's attorney filed a petition in Los Angeles Superior Court on Thursday seeking the change. The 31-year-old NBA star was born Ronald William Artest Jr. In the court documents, Artest cites personal reasons for wanting to make the change. An Aug. 26 court date was set to consider the petition. The petition filing was first reported by celebrity website TMZ. Artest's career has been filled with ups and downs. He helped the Lakers win the NBA championship a year ago and in...

So apparently Mavericks fans don't know how to properly celebrate a championship. They're dancing in the streets, cheering, and generally just having fun. No reports of violence, no cars burning, in short tens of thousands of fans and no riots. Do have some idiots parking on I35 to look over the parade. That's about the worst of it. C'mon, Dallas. Haven't we learned anything from LA about how to celebrate a championship or Vancouver about how to riot? Man, these Texans... /HEAVY sarcasm!

Hundreds of Dallas police officers will be watching an anticipated 250,000 Mavericks fans during Thursday’s parade — along the route, in the air, on rooftops and even from behind desks. Police Chief David Brown says his department is ready for anything along the roughly 1.25-mile parade route. If there’s trouble, hundreds of additional officers will be ready to sweep in, some with riot gear.

I was a freshman in college and a group of us were having some off-topic conversation at the end of an American studies class on science fiction as cultural history (which, I know, I know, sounds like an eminently useless American studies class, but which was nevertheless fascinating and awesome), and the subject of Anna Kournikova came up. I think we were talking about athletes as celebrities. In any event, my 18-year-old self pffft-ed at the mention of her name and said something like “yeah, she sucks!” This was me, I guess, expressing my distaste at style overtaking substance; her...

LeBron James reacts during Sunday night's NBA Finals game against the Dallas Mavericks. Dallas' Dirk Nowitzki is at rear. When the Dallas Mavericks finished off the Miami Heat in Game 6 of the NBA Finals on Sunday night, the happiness in Dallas may have been eclipsed in only one place, Cleveland, the city that Heat star LeBron James left to take his talents to South Beach. CNN affiliate WOIO-TV in Cleveland had a one-word headline on its sports page under a picture of James holding up his Heat jersey: "LOSER!" "LeBron James still has no rings," the site's story began....

When it comes to endorsement deals, winning the MVP of the NBA Finals is the perfect time to strike while the iron is hot. That's not going to happen for Dirk Nowitzki though. Why? He doesn't do endorsement deals. In fact, he's never even had an agent or business manager. Bloomberg's Michele Steele had a nice report on Nowitzki this weekend, taking a look at how 7-footer has eschewed ad dollars and side deals throughout his career. He's negotiated all his contracts with Dallas himself and doesn't have any endorsement deals outside of one shoe contract with Nike. Granted, even...

Q: Does it bother you that so many people are happy to see ou fail? JAMES: Absolutely not. Because at the end of the day, all the people that was rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today. They have the same personal problems they had today. And I am going to continue to live the way that I want to live and continue to do the things that I want to do, with me and my family...

MIAMI— The end. Of the hype. And the hope. Of instant gratification. And of vindication. Year One of the Big Three ended with a thud Sunday night for the Miami Heat at AmericanAirlines Arena. There will be no capping of last July's premature celebration over the free-agency signings of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. Instead, there will be reflection on nights such as Sunday, when a 105-95 loss to the Dallas Mavericks in Game 6 of the NBA Finals brought down the curtain on the 2010-11 season. And started a new waiting game, leaving plenty of questions in...

Im dying here! Anyone watching. Go Mavs. Fingers, Toes All crossed.