No Regard Mixtape: Jeremy Lin

On February whatever, against the Nets, Jeremy Lin took the red pill and escaped from the 2010 Summer League YouTube highlight reel that had imprisoned him for the past 18 months. In his first two weeks of running the Knicks squad, he played event basketball. He birthed cults, slayed dragons, sold organic radishes at farmer’s markets, won a bunch of games… and became a bit of a crush around the No Regard water-cooler.

We've had our eye on him for a minute now, but like you, we didn’t really know. We didn’t know that he had enough granite and grace in him to twerk his way to the hoop, almost at will, and take or avoid contact as he sees fit. We didn’t know that he could unpack defensive schemes and pry open passing lanes like a literature grad student dismantling Toni Morrison novels. We didn’t know he had a jump shot sturdy enough to keep defenses honest, preventing him from developing the type of agoraphobia that plagues Rondo. We didn’t know he had the bravado of Sam Cassell, tempered by a humble devotion to Christianity and D’Antoni’s system (RIP). Simply put, we’ve learned a lot about the guy.

And we keep learning. With D'Antoni's departure, Melo's return to whatever angry fans were clamoring him to return to, and gravity's insistence, Lin fell back down to walk among the other peasant point guards of the league. It's crystal clear that he was dropped into the perfect confluence of events and that this ready-to-cook goulash—Amar'e and Melo's absence, a string of easy opponents, D'Antoni's point guard-serenading system—was more responsible for his initial success than many are willing to admit. But hasn’t fate been dictating love for years? Haven’t the cosmos controlled how ardor manifests since day one?

Lin may be done for the season, but we’re far from losing our interest. Attraction is fueled in part by mystery, and there are still myriad unanswered questions about Lin. Primarily: Now that the original wave of hype and hashtags has crested, what kind of player is going to wash up on the beach? Who is Jeremy Lin? Is he Flip Murray? Is he Steve Nash? Is he Ramon Sessions? Is he Mitch Richmond? Is he Jimmy Ray?

At this moment, we have no idea. And that's why we're so enamored. And that's why we made this mixtape for the guy. We just want to get to know him better.

1. The Moldy Peaches, "NYC's Like A Graveyard"

"All the corpses like the way I play my guitar. You gotta be cute if you wanna get far!"

2. WILD FLAG, "Boom"
"5, 6, 7, 8, I like the way you make me stay up late. I like the way you make me understand. You take my hand, you're in command."

3. The Wrens, "Surprise, Honeycomb"
"Dozens laid rest, settled down. Then at last thought I might be done, but being good made me burst. The killing got worse. It almost got fun, so I got a new gun."

4. Albert Hammond, Jr., "Spooky Couch"

Instrumental

5. The Feelies, "Raised Eyebrows"
"He said 'oh.' Some will make it and some won't make it. Oh oh."

6. Bruce Springsteen, "It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City"
"But it's too hot in these tunnels, you can get hit up by the heat. You get up to get out at your next stop, but they push you back in your seat. Your heart starts beatin' faster as you struggle to your feet. Then you're outta that hole and back up on the street."

7. The Soundtrack Of Our Lives, "Nevermore"
"Everybody's climbing on your walls. Nevermore. Everybody wants to see you fall. There's a million ways to step aside, when the situation wants to die with you."

8. Don't Stop Or We'll Die, "The Ballad of Bird and Fox"
"Look at us, we're fighting once again. Said we'd never do this in front of him. Well, we may have our differences and we may disagree, but there's something more important here than you or me. We gotta raise this kid and we gotta raise him right. They say that we can't do it. Let's prove them wrong tonight."

9. Beulah, "A Good Man Is Easy To Kill"
"And when they cut up your lung, you said it could all breathe easy—the hole swallowed your heart. When they drilled holes in your skull and screwed that halo to your head, did you think you could fly? I made a prayer for you, then prayed some more that it'd come true. Don't know about God but I believe in you."

10. Spiritualized, "No God Only Religion"

Instrumental

11. Owen Pallett, "What Do You Think Will Happen Now?"

"The difficulties of my story—despite discomforts, despite myself—I reaffirm my endless devotion to the belief that we're all of value, we're all of virtue. And so inclined, we fill up our cups and toast to each other."