Jeremy Lin: What's Next for New Sensation After Being NBA Player of the Week?

Jeremy Lin has been named the Eastern Conference Player of the Week. Within 10 minutes of stating this, Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski's tweet had been retweeted 258 times. 

It is hard to imagine where the words "new sensation" have been more understated. Which word is more of an understatement is hard to say: "new" or "sensation"? Either way, it's hard to imagine that 10 days ago Jeremy Lin was going to be this week's celebrity of the moment. 

So what's next to a man who literally made a couch famous? Lin won't maintain the pace he has set, and the Knicks are eventually going to lose a game, but that does't mean it's all bad news for the city of New York.

Last Saturday, Lin came down to earth just a notch, going just 1-of-12 from the field for the second half. Is this a sign of things to come? Teams now have had a look at Lin and he's not taking teams by surprise either. 

On the other hand, Lin is a smart player. The kid went to Harvard after all. He's going to adjust to the adjustments as well. 

He's also going to have Amar'e Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony coming back to play. While that's likely to see his scoring take a dip, his assists are going to correspondingly go up. 

The most important thing to remember: Given that Anthony doesn't disrupt the offense, the team will continue to win. 

Of course that is a pretty big qualifier. Anthony has a history of being a black hole. It would be folly to suggest that he should defer to Lin, but it's not folly to suggest that he defer to the system that the rest of the team is playing.

It's not a question of how many shots he takes, it's how takes his shots. 

If Anthony stops the ball movement and never passes, but just keeps running iso plays, the the Knicks won't be any different than they have been in the past. He must defer to the system. 

The team has what it desperately needed—a real point guard and a guy who can penetrate, distribute the ball or score and run the pick-and-roll.

The Knicks can be a winning team, if, and only if, Anthony allows it to be. In that sense, Anthony controls the fate of both Lin and the team.