Jeremy Lin, the Flagrant Mystery

The video showing how Lin is treated unfairly

This week, a video made by fans of Charlotte Hornet's guard, Jeremy Lin, was released to the public via YouTube and the response was astonishing. In the 6 minute video, Jlin's fans outlined how he had been outrageously fouled and wasn't even getting fouls for most plays.

Many fans are left in frustration after seeing what Lin had been going through

The video had showed what a common flagrant foul was in the NBA and compared it to the likes of how Jeremy Lin had been fouled. It was shocking how Lin had still stayed in the game after the hits he took. A more surprising stat I found was that Jeremy had been fouled 813 time over the past 4 seasons, yet he has got 0 flagrant foul calls.

After analyzing the video many times, I was still puzzled and looked for possible conclusions. To begin, I would like to applaud Lin for his toughness to take all these hits and not complain one bit. But I came to a couple of conclusions and the first, being the most sensible, was that the referees who were calling the games couldn't catch the flagrants because of the high game pace.

This wasn't my initial thought however, yet it is very likely due to Lin's style of play. Jeremy Lin is a workhorse and tries everything to get to the rim and finish. He is very quick, but there are quicker players than him and they get calls all the time. Some players like John Wall, Zach Lavine, and others get way more flagrant calls and play at a much faster pace than Lin.

Lin is now prepping for the playoffs and is still an exciting player to watch

And then there is the thinking that it is a racial issue. I was a culprit of this belief and don't fully believe if it is the reason. However it does seem odd that the referees never looked back at the monitor after Lin was clearly whacked above the shoulders. As many NBA fans know, officials look to the monitor even for the most minute details, then why not for hard fouls for Lin.

Looking into one of the final clips in the video, the referee had just been standing there and saw Jeremy get shouldered in the face yet didn't call anything. This is a big issue that the NBA should discuss immediately. Lin being the only Asian in the NBA currently, we don't have a good sample size to see whether this is a racial problem.

The video now has well over a million views and the makers of the video have tried to reach out to the NBA to see this issue. We all hope this issue is fixed immediately so that the league's reputation isn't ruined and so that it can be a fair game for all.