New York will not stop slandering Jeremy Lin

The New York Knicks, who will line up Raymond Felton and Jason Kidd at point guard this season, lost Jeremy Lin to the Houston Rockets in free agency. Until the point at which it became apparent that the Knicks would not spend to retain Lin, pretty much everyone in New York loved the kid. Then, when his future became less certain, the anonymice came out. And they started ripping Lin.

And now that Felton has looked good in early preseason action (despite eight NBA seasons in which he has usually looked mediocre to average) and now that Lin has struggled in the preseason, those anonymice have some extra oomph in their strident criticisms.

From Mitch Lawrence of the New York Daily News:

"More than a problem with his knee, what I saw again from Lin is that he is limited as an athlete," was how one person with years of NBA experience put it after seeing Lin's debut. "Offensively, he should be fine. But when he has to guard opposing point guards, especially guys with speed like Russell Westbrook, he is going to really struggle."

Sounds like more tough times ahead for Jeremy Lin.

There is a role for anonymous sources in journalism ... even in sports journalism. (How else would we get contract figures without team rules getting openly broken?) But this is not the role. Ripping a player's ability after a preseason game but not having the guts to put your name on it is just gross. And it's only going to intensify as the season goes on.

This is cowardly stuff from Lawrence and his source. Pure cowardice.