Jason Williams is a great comparison. I hope Lin finds more success than Jason in the later stages of his career. Jason was flashy as hell when he came in and was an instant phenomena.
Jason Williams was a top-ten pick, #7 for the Kings. I wouldn't call that "no-name" and "out of nowhere." I don't think there actually is a good comparison point in NBA history. Or at least, I haven't heard one yet and haven't thought of one. To be undrafted and the first time you get starter-level minutes to be putting up historically big numbers. Even unheralded second-round finds like Arenas and Redd didn't captivate like this.
I was thinking the same thing, but White Chocolate could never finish in the lane like Lin does, even when he was a phenom. In advanced stats, White Chocolate was barely above average in his best years. Maybe Lin is on the biggest fluke run in NBA history, but what's he's done so far surpasses anything Jason Williams could have dreamed of doing in the NBA.
The biggest surprise for me of Jason Williams' career was that he was selected 7th in the '98 draft. It was literally out of nowhere, considering his troubled history at Florida. I remember watching that draft, and wondering "who????"?
A reach in the top ten, but he was certainly fun to watch and part of the show that made the Kings relevant. The Kings made a smart move replacing him with Bibby, though. Lin came from actual obscurity (from a basketball standpoint, that is) and has been much, much better, so far.
I can't remember an NBA rise like Lin's out of nowhere. Anthony Morrow was a nice story for Golden State in 2008-09, but in terms of actually being The Man for a team, I've never seen anything like this in the NBA. I'm just going to sit back at this point and enjoy it. My inherent resistance to the next big thing wants to kick its feet up, relax, and allow me to see what's next.
I know what you're saying Minstrel... I guess my comparison was more "captivated the league" and less "no-name player". White Chocolate was something to behold his rookie season.
He was certainly a story. Then again, his 12.8 PER was rather BLANKY, with the added bonus of a 19.1 USG%. I think fans (myself included) were just dumber back then in terms of assessing value. I bought into the White Chocolate hype, but looking back, he was fairly terrible, and probably hurt those Kings teams.
It was just flashy moves. Cool looking passes. The team was significantly better when they traded for Bibby.
The weird thing is that the one year they actually made a WCF, Bibby had a 14.8 PER. He was much better in later years for the Kings, but they flamed out of the playoffs before making the WCF.
Not no name. But, he was the surprise of the year before Lin. No one thought he'd have as much of an impact in his first year as he's had.
Well you were responding to this: And no offense to Rubio, but he hasn't captivated the league nearly as much as Lin.
Rubio has a 16 PER this year as a rookie. It's nice, but come on now. Lin is playing at an All-Star level.
Rubio was known around the world as the next best thing. This chinaman.......errrrrr kid has come out of nowhere!
What I'm getting at is Rubio was the darling of the NBA this season until Linsanity came around. I'm not slighting Lin either, I've watched every game of his since the Utah game.
