First Pick Blog

Super Lintendo. Mr. Lincredible. Qui-Gon Lin.

Whatever you want to call him, Jeremy Lin is gaining more media coverage right now than Tebowing and the Kardashian family combined. I’ll admit that I’m a fan of what the kid is doing. And if you aren’t, there is something wrong with you. Who doesn’t love an underdog story? America is an underdog country founded by underdog patriots who put together an underdog government and overcame tremendous odds to force it’s way as a super power in the global scheme of things. If Jeremy Lin’s story doesn’t touch you in some way your probably a robot (or even worse: a communist).

However, I will admit that with the amount of air time Linsanity gets on my favorite network, ESPN, I am definitely starting to get tired of seeing his face and listening to roundtable discussions about whether his play will continue or whether he will be able to coexist with Melo’ or whether the Knicks can make a playoff run. Seeing so many close ups of Landry Fields, Amare Stoudamire’s stubble patches, and Mike D’Antoni’s mustache have made me more disgusted with my screen than the swarms of people that paid to see “Man On a Ledge” in theaters. Ironically, these close-ups were my inspiration for this article.

One morning several days ago I found myself staring intently into the face of the “Italian stallion” that is D’Antoni and found myself wondering, “how in the world does this man keep his mustache so finely trimmed?” One would believe his wife lovingly purchased him a Philips Norelco or Conair hair trimmer for his birthday or Christmas or something but, seriously it is one of the finest mustaches in recent memory. Seriously, see for yourself. 

Not only is it a great stache’, but it eerily resembles the grey stache’/hair combo sported by one William Daniels, or through the eyes of any 90s born teenager, a character named George Feeny from ABC’s sitcom “Boy Meets World”.

As soon as my train of thought brought me to this conclusion, my mind began to wander, “I wonder if the stallion is any good at acting”, and then to, “How funny would it be to see him in a pair of thin brimmed glasses mentoring the likes of Corey and Shawn from the other side of the fence in the Matthews’ yard”.

Then it dawned on me, especially with all this attention being place on Lin, it would not be THAT crazy to place each of Lin’s teammates beside him in an animated sitcom that could air on ESPN in their 4:30 time slot instead of Dan Lebatard’s 30 minute disaster that he is currently running in place on Jim Rome with his Hispanic father.

Seriously how hilarious would that be? Imagine a cartoon montage of Jeremy Lin traveling around New York City in a rickshaw taking pictures in front of the Empire State Building, or surfing down the Statue of Liberty, or even climbing Trump Tower in a gorilla costume. Tell me that you would not take time out of your day to watch that show especially if they cast real voices and actually had hilarious plot lines. Sure as hell would be funnier than the “the Cleveland Show”. I even thought of characteristics for each character:

Jeremy: The shows protagonist who is soft spoken yet, incredibly charismatic. He puts up with the antics of the New York media and he is constantly antagonized by Spike Lee and feels bad when he says no to his ridiculous requests and gifts.

Landry Fields: Jeremy’s best friend and alcoholic who occasionally gets too wasted and makes unnecessary passes at what he thinks are attractive women and makes poor choices (I imagine an episode or two where he tries to hookup with Lebron or D-Rose accidentally or calls David Stern to tell him “how he really feels” about his management styles). He claims that Jeremy and himself make Batman and Robin despite underachieving significantly.

Melo’: The selfish superstar who is constantly jealous of Jeremy no matter what he does. He consistently attempts to get back at him for stealing the spotlight in New York and wants nothing more than to get rid Jeremy and his followers. And did I mention he’s also incredibly overweight.

Amare: The astoundingly dimwitted oaf who provides nothing but, comedic relief. Seriously what other role could he play?

Tyson: The swag machine. I imagine him speaking similarly to Barry White and wearing lavish clothing at peculiar times. His vocabulary expands as far as Randy Jackson’s does and he is the ultimate ladies man

Bill Walker/Mike Bibby/Iman Shumpert/Toney Douglas/Jared Jefferies/etc: Bow to Lin every time they are in his presence. They see Jeremy as Elvis and treat him accordingly. They give him shotgun, first in the cafeteria line, offer up their girlfriends, and refer to him as sir no matter what the circumstances are.

D’Antoni: The wise man/ mentor. The oracle. He provides wisdom to Jeremy on top of a mountain that I envision having many stairs somewhere in the Himalayas.

Baron Davis: See above.

Spike Lee: The over enthusiastic suck-up who claims to have had faith in Jeremy ever since he was in high school. He goes out of his way to befriend Jeremy and offers him trips abroad, expensive dinners, invites to exclusive parties, and even buys him a car just so Jeremy shows him respect.His height is exaggerated as well and his glasses are bigger than his head.

Tell me I’m not crazy. If I pitched this idea to ESPN’s headquarters in Los Angeles or in Bristol they could develop it and actually make it work. They have never tackled the field of animation I think this would be great way to start. I think it would get a better following than any Tebow movie or tv show. Besides it would give them more time to talk about Peyton Manning’s future with the Colts, Andrew Luck’s draft potential, Blake Griffins dunking ability, or the most recent alley-oop from the Miami Heat, the things that apparently all of America’s sports fans care about…

If you have any ideas for this sitcom which I am currently in the process of patenting, please comment below or shoot us an email.

By Matt Fehr