Had it with “Linsanity”? If you ain’t sayin’ “yes” it’s likely you’re lying.
Anyway, Jeremy Lin’s phenomenal 15 minutes (well, days) of fame with the New York Knicks already seem like 15 months. It’s probably time for other craziness to prevail.
How ‘bout, to cite a couple of local references, “’Vin-sanity” or “N’-sanity”?
“’Vin” would be a reference to Kevin Durant, one of the greatest Seattle Sonics who barely played here. Durant, of course, is now a perennial National Basketball Association all-star for Oklahoma City. He's currently the third-leading per-game point producer in the league and, less quantifiably, near the top in charisma.
Sunday he put up a, well, ‘Vin-sane 51 in a, er, win-sane overtime home victory against Denver.
Then, closer to home, there’s the suddenly N’-sane player: Aziz N’Diaye, the sky-high center for the University of Washington Huskies. Saturday (Feb. 18), during the Dawgs 79-70 win against Arizona in their final home game, N’Diaye, pronounced EN-jye (rhyming with EN-eye), led all rebounders with 12 and added eight points.
It was, then, in many ways, the best game so far for the 7-foot Senegal native. His apparent emergence as a force in the paint may be all the more important given that the Huskies now would seem to need at least two wins in three remaining away games to give them — at 21-9 — bracket-worthiness for the NCAA tournament. The Dawgs also would need to comport themselves well in the Pac-12 league tournament, a competition that they wouldn’t necessarily have to win in order to make it to the national big dance.
At least they seem to have in N’Diaye a big dancer, albeit a man not destined to set any free-throw accuracy standards.
Would N’Diaye, a junior, ever figure as a big man in the NBA? Maybe in the following scenario:
After he leaves the Husky program N’Diaye gets drafted by Oklahoma City. When the time comes for the Thunder’s first game with the Knicks, N’Diaye leads his team in rebounds while Durant and Lin are at their best. At this point it doesn’t make any difference who wins because you’ve already got a game at once “N’-sane,” “’Vin-sane” and, as always, “Lin-sane.”
