"Jeremy Lin is a good player but all the hype is because he's Asian. Black players do what he does every night and don't get the same praise," Mayweather wrote on his Twitter account.
"Its OK for ESPN to give their opinion but I say something and everyone questions Floyd Mayweather," the boxer tweeted. "I'm speaking my mind on behalf of other NBA players. They are programmed to be politically correct and will be penalized if they speak up. Other countries get to support/cheer their athletes and everything is fine. As soon as I support Black American athletes, I get criticized."
Ugh, you knew someone was going to do it. Someone was going to take this great story and have to make it somehow racist. Is Lin's popularity tied at all to race? Yes, of course. We haven't really had an Asian player take over games, other then Yao and he was a big man not a PG. So sure, it has to do with race because it's something we haven't seen before, like when Tiger exploded onto the golf scene. People get excited when something different comes around.
Plus, I don't think this is all tied to basketball. This is a guy who came out of nowhere. I mean he went to Harvard, was cut by 2 teams, and now is dropping 30+ points a night in the NBA. Not too many stories like that come around. Gilbert Arenas was kind of like it, and I remember "Agent 0" getting a ton of hype.
So you know what Mayweather, why don't you just leave the kid alone and let everyone enjoy this? We all love an underdog story and this is nothing more than that. Sit in your house, talk to yourself and the 3rd person and prepare for jail.