It's one of the most absurd stories sports has ever told. Disney executives would laugh at the ridiculousness of such a movie pitch. Sleep on a teammate's couch one night, take over Madison Square Garden the next? Get real. Can't happen.

But it has. Jeremy Lin has gone from NBA journeyman just hoping to latch onto a team to full-blown basketball superstar. And now the inevitable cross-sport comparisons come. And the one name everybody seems to throw out there makes me rife with anger.

Jeremy Lin is not Tim Tebow, and to compare the two is an attack on Lin's basketball abilities.

Before Linsanity happened, Lin was a state champion in Palo Alto, California. But even after winning the state's player of the year award and taking down national powerhouse Mater Dei, he couldn't get a scholarship offer from a Division I team. He had to send his highlight tape to teams in the Ivy and Patriot Leagues just to get them to take a look. The only two teams that offered him a walk-on spot were Harvard and Brown — Lin chose the Crimson.

Tebow was a highly touted prospect at Nease High School in Florida who chose to play his college ball at the University of Florida. There, he won a Heisman Trophy and two national titles before being drafted by the Denver Broncos with the 25th pick in the 2010 draft.

Lin went undrafted, got cut by the Rockets and Warriors and was hanging around the D-League before the Knicks got desperate for a point guard and gave him a call. He was so unsure of his place in the NBA that he crashed on his brother's couch. Until the night that his brother had company and he had to find some place else to spend the night. That place was, once again, on a couch. This time it was the sofa of fellow Knick Landry Fields.

Tebow was gifted a starting slot after the fan's demanded it happen. He won games, albeit looking terrible in the process — completing 46.5 percent of his passes for the season.

Lin took a team that was struggling to maintain relevance and brought them to the forefront of the national media. In a city that just celebrated a Super Bowl title, the Giants are back page news right now. It's all about Lin, the man who has scored 136 points in his first five NBA starts, a number nobody has replicated since the NBA-ABA merger.

Tebow won games based on sheer luck, behind a defense that played well and things that happened out of his power. He won with help from onside kicks, interceptions returned for touchdowns and a defense that kept his team in the game.

Lin scored 38 points at Madison Square Garden to knock off Kobe Bryant and the Lakers. Lin hit a 3-pointer with 0.5 seconds left to beat the Raptors. Lin's gotten people who don't care about the NBA to sit down and watch.

Tebow's a footnote in NFL history. One of many quarterbacks that got too much credit for a good defense. A quarterback that will, sooner rather than later, lose his starting job.

Lin's story fills an entire chapter in the annals of the NBA. The first U.S.-born player of Taiwanese descent to play in the NBA is thriving with this opportunity.

Both believe in God. Both play professional sports. That's the only real similarity that exists between the two.

But to compare Jeremy Lin to Tim Tebow? That's an insult.