Jeremy Lin Will Have to Get Even Better to Earn His Keep in New York

On Wednesday night, Act III of the Jeremy Lin saga will begin. The New York Knicks are hoping it's just as brilliant as Acts I and II.

In the event you've just returned from a trip to the moon or to the center of the earth, Lin is quite the hero in New York suddenly. In the Knicks' last two games, Lin has scored 53 points and dished out 15 assists, production that had previously been unheard of for Knicks point guards this season.

Right now, nobody cares about the Super Bowl champion New York Giants. They can't hold a candle to "Linsanity."

The consensus among reasonable people (i.e. people other than delusional Knicks fans) is that this can't last. There's a reason Lin went undrafted and was then cast aside by the Golden State Warriors and Houston Rockets. He's just not this good.

Zach Lowe of SI.com took the time to break it all down on Tuesday. In short, Lin has exploded because he's faced two teams, the New Jersey Nets and Utah Jazz, who happen to be terrible at defending the pick-and-roll, a staple of Mike D'Antoni teams and Lin's personal specialty. Lin's numbers have gotten an additional boost from the absence of Amar'e Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony.

Going forward, it's going to be much harder for Lin to be productive. The nature of the Knicks' offense will change once Melo and Stoudemire both come back. Specifically, the floor won't be as wide open for Lin, meaning he's going to have to work harder to penetrate through and confuse defenses.

Also, the secret's out. Lin will no longer be underestimated. Stopping him is now a priority for Knicks opponents.

Teams will now put an emphasis on making Lin beat them. They'll prioritize taking away the pick-and-roll, which will make Lin dig deeper into his bag of tricks. We have a small sample size to judge Lin by this season, but we do have an idea of what we can expect once the pick=and-roll has been taken away from him.

As Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News was kind enough to point out, the Warriors basically didn't use the pick-and-roll last season. With Lin's specialty not part of the offense, there really wasn't a whole lot he could do. Regular minutes were hard to come by, and there wasn't much he could do to earn them.

It's not hard to see why. Lin is limited athletically, and his jumper is nothing special. Take away the pick-and-roll, and Lin himself is nothing special.

We know that D'Antoni is not going to abandon the pick-and-roll, especially not now that he knows Lin can execute it so well. If he wants consistent minutes and/or a starting job for the rest of the season, however, Lin is going to have to show that he's not just a one-trick pony.

Nothing in Lin's track record suggests he's an extraordinary player, but I'll allow that his abilities are not set in stone. Players are getting better every day, every week, every year. There's no reason Lin can't get better too.

He's going to have to. Lin has been great in two games, but there's no denying that the stars have aligned in his favor in these two games. It's been too easy.

And besides, it's not the end of the world for the Knicks if Lin ends up being a fluke. If he's not the team's savior, there's always Baron Davis.