Who Shot It Better? Nathaniel Butler vs. Heinz Kleutmeier: Jeremy Lin

Unrecruited, undrafted, released from two teams, Asian-American, first Harvard graduate in the NBA in 50 years — who comes virtually out of nowhere to set the NBA record for most points in 5 NBA starts. Whatever angle you view Jeremy Lin from, he’s become the feel good story of the past two weeks, and with the defeat of the defending world champion Dallas Mavericks yesterday, he’s cemented himself as a bonafide baller. This, of course, means he’s showing up on magazines, and we’d be linsane crazy not to cover it.

In this episode of Who Shot It Better, we pit Sports Illustrated’s Heinz Kleutmeier (he of Michael Phelps fame) against NBA/Getty stalwart Nathaniel S. Butler.

SI’s February 20th cover features Lin surrounded by all five Los Angeles Lakers players as he drives the lane en route to a 38 point game. A perfect illustration for the “Against All Odds” headline. As far as action shots go, this one is pretty darn good. Player facing the camera with intense expression. Legs are in a good position and off the ground. Interesting foreground and background elements.

The February 27th Asia edition of Time features a leaping Lin, and with the exception of the ref in the background, this is a pretty great poster image by Nathaniel Butler who covers a lot of the Lakers games for NBA Entertainment/Getty. The benefit of shooting for NBAE/Getty is that Nathaniel has access to the strobe lights mounted at the top of the arena, which gives him crisper images albeit with the inability to motor drive 10 frames per second.

Verdict: Nathaniel Butler. I do like the Kleutmeier image, but it might have been more graphical in nature had he had a higher shooting position. The Butler image is classic hero — low angle, peak action, pure isolation. Perhaps not as great an action shot, but definitely the better cover shot in my opinion.

p.s. Michelangelo Di Battista’s portrait of Whitney Houston on the cover of People (from InStyle’s January 2010 feature) is lovely. RIP.