Call it a Lin-stant classic.

Already writing the NBA’s best story, Jeremy Lin just scripted his most thrilling finish yet.

And just in time for the Knicks’ longest homestand of the season. It’ll be pure Linsanity Wednesday for the first of five straight games at Madison Square Garden.

Nothing about the kid from Harvard should be a surprise anymore. When he launched a 3-pointer in a tie game with a half-second left in Toronto on Tuesday night, the result seemed obvious.

“I knew it was going in,” Knicks guard Iman Shumpert said.

Who would doubt it at this point?

CONTINUED at CBS New York.

Retired NBA star Yao Ming has added another line to his post-basketball resume — politician — becoming a member of an advisory body to Shanghai’s legislature.

Since the 31-year-old Yao announced last July that injuries had ended his career with the Houston Rockets, he has become a university student and set up a wine business to go with owning a professional basketball team in China.

Photos in official media on Monday showed Yao at the weekend closing ceremony for the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Shanghai Committee.

“There are about 142 members in the group, and Yao is the youngest,” Kong Rong, who works in the service office of committee, was quoted as saying by the China Daily.

The advisory committee does not have any real power, but the newspaper said Yao is supposed to attend regular meetings, and can make suggestions for the advisory body and government departments.

Yao was quoted as saying “raising proposals is very serious business, and I do not want to be hasty.”

It is common for sports figures to move into politics in China. Olympic gold medal hurdler Liu Xiang is a member of both the Shanghai and national political advisory bodies.

Yao, one of the most popular celebrities in China from his eight seasons in the NBA, is a student at Jiaotong University, one of the top universities in his hometown Shanghai.

In November, he released the first-ever bottles of his new Yao Ming-branded wine, a 2009 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon currently available only in mainland China, where the market for imported wines has boomed over the past decade.

Source: The Daily Caller.

Meet Sara Nodjoumi and Till Schauder. They’re husband and wife documentary filmmakers currently finishing a project called The Iran Job, waiting to hear about their film festival submissions and obsessively checking Kickstarter to track the progress of their campaign to raise money needed for the film’s final touches. All in all, it’s an exciting, nerve-wracking time of anticipation in their household. Sara and Till’s four year old has even gotten into the spirit of things, randomly yelling out words like Kickstarter and Facebook.

The Iran Job follows Kevin Sheppard, an American basketball player from St. Croix who is recruited to play for the Iranian Super League. Judging from the trailer, the film’s a winner. Till describes Kevin as smart, warm and funny. You can see from his interactions in the film that Kevin’s got a quick humor and is a sharp observer. He becomes friends with three Iranian women and this unlikely friendship coincides with the Green Movement in Iran. It’s basketball that brought Kevin to Iran and the arena fills with cries of “Kevin, Kevin.” At the same time, the streets are filling with Green Movement protesters calling out “Where is my vote?”

This is all great stuff. But the story behind the story is great too. For Sara and Till, the post-production process has them on pins and needles. Till had this to say about Kickstarter: “The Kickstarter campaign is the first time anyone is seeing the film outside of our circle and it’s really exciting because it’s [just been a few days now] and we’re getting incredible traction. We’ve done some research on these campaigns and we’re doing well. We’re getting pledges and backers and Facebook Likes. We were expecting that in the beginning it would just be family and friends in our own network, but already on the second day people started pledging that we don’t know, from all over the world.”

They showed a fantastic amount of self-control in not sneaking to check the Kickstarter website to see if they’d gotten any new backers while we were talking. But it’s hard not to hit the Refresh button and hope the numbers change. It’s addicting. I’m not sure how I’ve gotten sucked in to compulsively checking a Kickstarter campaign for a documentary film about basketball in Iran, but that’s what makes my job fun.

Sara and Till have gotten some pretty fine attention since the film’s appeal crosses over from basketball to global politics to women’s right. Supporters include Abigail Disney (Executive Producer), Christane Amanpour, Maz Jobrani, Karim Sadjapour and Gloria Steinem. The Kickstarter campaign is one more piece in making the film.

In case you aren’t familiar with Kickstarter, it works like this: Submit your project (check the guidelines first). Once it’s up on the Kickstarter site, you’ll have a specified time period to get pledges for your project. If you don’t reach your targeted funding amount, no monies are paid. But if you reach or exceed your goal, you get your funding. Now for the people who have pledged, not only is there the supreme satisfaction of lending support to a cool project, but depending on the dollar amount kicked in, they’ll walk away with a DVD, poster or other expression of gratitude.

By pledging $25 to The Iran Job, you’ve pre-ordered a copy of the DVD. So it’s a good deal for you and for the filmmakers. With pledges coming in from all over the world and for varying amounts, you can see why Sara and Till are glued to the Kickstarter website.

There’s more to this story than just fundraising. Till traveled in and out of Iran with a small cache of recording equipment and mailed footage to his mother in Germany to ensure it would safely make it out of the country. Germany has better relations with Iran than America does. His mother then sent it on to the U.S. and everyone kept their fingers crossed that nothing went wrong during the process.

Of course, there was the time Till was detained in Iran while Sara was home with one child and 5 months pregnant. I asked him if the Iranian authorities knew he was making the film. “We still don’t know. The guy at the airport didn’t speak English. He just swiped my passport and said Blacklist. And then I was taken to this room for 24 hours and sent back on the next plane out. Nobody there gave me any explanation, but then I wrote a letter to the Iranian embassy in Berlin. Having entered as a German citizen, that embassy was in charge and I never got any response. I tried again, calling and nothing. It’s possible that they generally sort of crack down on people in the media in the wake of the election, but we haven’t found out. I’d love to know.”

So you see, documentary filmmakers lead exciting lives. There’s creativity in shooting, storytelling, funding and smuggling. And now the 50-day game show atmosphere of the Kickstarter campaign. Please join in the fun. Click here for The Iran Job Kickstarter campaign and Like them on Facebook. And watch for the film to come out in 2012.

My Two Cents: Fuck ESPN! End Two Cents.

*Taken from the Daily Mail.

The Syracuse University basketball coach accused of sex abuse has been fired after damning new evidence suggested his wife watched him molest a boy who was staying at their house.

Laurie Fine allegedly told one of her husband’s three accusers in a recorded phone call that she suspected he had done the same to other boys – but that she never did anything to stop it.

She is also said to have revealed that she slept with one of the victims, once he turned 18 – as it emerged that the tapes had been in the hands of police and ESPN for nearly ten years and no action was taken.

CONTINUED..

*Taken from AP.

The Chinese team that got into a nasty brawl with Georgetown University players in an exhibition game went to the Beijing airport Friday to reconcile and see off their departing rivals ahead of a rematch Sunday in Shanghai.

A brief statement from Georgetown said head coach John Thompson III and two of the team’s players met with representatives of China’s Bayi Rockets following “heated exchanges” in Thursday night’s exhibition game.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minsiter Cui Tiankai said Bayi members went to Beijing airport to see off the Georgetown team and the sides exchanged souvenirs.

CONTINUED..

*Taken from SLC Dunk.

Yao Ming, of the Houston Rockets, has retired from the NBA, according to a number of sources. Obviously, not directly Jazz related news, but we see the continuing death of true, back to the basket big men in the passing of Yao Ming from being an “active” player to retiring from the NBA. He will be missed. Love him or hate him, he was a very nice man who advanced basketball in his nation (China), his continent (Asia), and across the globe. Yes, he got a lot of All-Star votes every year – but you can’t hate a guy for being popular. (The under-reported issue is that the majority of Yao Ming votes came from the US, not China…) He finishes his NBA years with career averages of 19.0 ppg (52.4 fg%, 83.3 ft%), 9.2 rpg, and 1.9 bpg. Hall of Famer? He’ll get in for sure. Even if he only got out of the 1st round once in his career.

He will be missed.

*Taken from WWLTV.

The year of the lockout continues.

Thursday afternoon, with about 10 hours to go until the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement officially was set to end, the league’s owners officially told the players to take their talents elsewhere.

At midnight, they will be a basketball work stoppage.

And the NFL, which has been in a lockout since March 12, finally has some company.

Only, while there’s speculation the NFL is getting close to a compromise, this one might go the distance.

Yes, both are about money.

But the NFL has never said it is losing money. It just wants to make sure clubs hurting for money don’t start losing.

CONTINUED..

My Two Cents: I remember going to Magic games back in the 94-95 season when they made the Finals for the first time. Through Shaq, I became a Magic fan. I was pissed when he left but I understand why he did. Thanks for the years of domination fine sir, you will be missed. End Two Cents.

*Taken from NBC Sports.

I’m going to miss having Shaquille O’Neal around the NBA.

It’s the end of an era — Kyrie Irving, the top pick in this coming draft, was born the year Shaq entered the league. But it feels like more than that.

I’ll miss him in part because he was a reminder that this is a game and we should all be having fun with it — players, fans and media alike.

In a league where often players treat basketball like a desk job, where the players practice speaking in clichés like out of Bull Durham, where the media can take itself too seriously, where there is a wall between players and fans (and media), Shaq broke all that down. This is hoops, it isn’t Navy Seals storming an armed compound in the Middle East. This should be fun. Shaq’s persona was the counterbalance to Michael Jordan in the 1990s.

CONTINUED..

My Two Cents: Fuck Delaware. End Two Cents.

Delaware Department of Transportation crews escorted by state police tore down basketball hoops this morning in two neighborhoods in Claymont amid protests from residents who say the nets aren’t harming anyone. (03/25/11)