Opinion | ‘Deceptive’ Jeremy Lin, ‘freakish’ John Wall and why we need to mind our language when it comes to assumptions about athletes
- Asian-American NBA star feels his talent has been overlooked in describing him as ‘hard-working’
- Media still falling back on lazy stereotypes, selling fans and players short
He’s talking about the view of him as an Asian-American, something which has shaped the way he has been described as a player. Never mind that he was tied with John Wall for speed when his numbers from the 2012 Portland Invitational Combine were compared, it was always “deceptive” with Lin, while African-American Wall got different descriptors.
“People call him freakishly athletic, freakishly quick and then I’m deceptively quick or deceptively athletic,” Lin explained. Two different modifiers but one end result. “In many ways, he’s overlooked as well.”
Harvard graduate Lin gets it – “I just don’t look the part. And I understand that” – but he thinks he is sold short, as is Wall.
“For him, maybe people are more like, ‘Oh he’s so talented, he’s so talented’ and they take away a little bit from his work that he’s put in. For me, maybe people scale more towards like, ‘Oh, he must work so hard, he must work so hard.’ And maybe not recognise – maybe there’s a little bit of talent because if you took everybody else and they work just as hard as me without talent they still wouldn’t be in the NBA.”