The trade that sent Jeremy Lin to the Los Angeles Lakers may have cost Houston Rockets star shooting guard James Harden the opportunity to start for the first time in his career, and here's how?
For the third consecutive season, the 26-year old Lin made it in the top-10 among Western Conference guards for the NBA All-Star balloting.
Buoyed by a massive following in Asia and huge 2.5M Asian-American community in Los Angeles area, the former Harvard standout actually racked up more than 216,000 votes ahead of Mike Conley of the Memphis Grizzlies (103,015), who has emerged as one of the top playmakers in the West this season.
Sure, Lin won't be seeing action in New York during the All-Star festivities unless he gets an invitation to compete in one of those All-Star Saturday events (obviously, not in the slam dunk contest), however he somehow managed to mess up someone's dream of becoming an All-Star starter for the first time in his career.
James Harden has blossomed into a legit MVP contender this season, averaging 27.2 points, 6.7 assists and 5.5 rebounds per game this season. In just his third season with the Rockets, Harden ascended from Oklahoma Thunder's third-wheel scorer to a full-fledged superstar, becoming one of the league's top guns.
Even before the start of the 2014-15 NBA season, many analysts considered Harden as the best shooting guard in the game today. And although he's still quite a slacker on the defensive end, Harden's body of work as a scorer is simply phenomenal.
But how in earth can't he be a starter for the West All-Star team? The answer lies on Lin's impact in the race. With the Rockets trading the Asian-American star to Los Angeles, they did not only send Lin's playmaking skills but thousands of die-hard Linsanity fans.
Harden could have been the beneficiary of Lin's large Asian followings, but instead majority of the fans who voted for Lin's inclusion in the All-Star team also helped Bryant hold onto the final backcourt spot in the West starter by barely 90,000 points.
Harden non-inclusion to the starting lineup for West All-Stars isn't because he doesn't have enough supporters to thwart Bryant's army. Perhaps, the Beard is just a victim of Linsanity's still relevant presence in the basketball universe.
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