Basketball Sport

Chinese “Linsanity”

Written by Pai Yao

This article first appeared in the Mar/Apr 2012 issue of World Gaming magazine.

Sometimes when the circus comes to town there is actually something worth taking a look at. Jeremy Lin might just be one of those rare overnight fairytales that becomes a notable part of sporting folklore.

Jeremy Lin is the biggest thing in the Big Apple right now. After the heroics of Eli Manning and the New York Giants, the sporting mad throngs of New Yorkers thought they had to wait until the baseball season before they had something else to get excited about. Who would have thought the city’s most maligned sporting icon, the under achieving “Knicks“, would explode in a frenzy on the back of a basketball reject called Jeremy Lin. Well it’s happened and oh how sweet it is.

Jeremy Lin is the product of two 168cm tall engineers from Taiwan who made their home in America. Jeremy rose to 191cm, which considering his background was tall, but in basketball terms left him a small man amongst giants. 23 year old Lin is a smart man. The Ivy League graduate with an economics degree from Harvard seemed destined to be labeled as that smart Asian kid who was a good basketballer, but far from a great one. In others’ eyes his downfall was harboring the pipe dream of becoming a regular NBA starter.

After receiving no college scholarship offers, and being undrafted out of college, he somehow made his way to the bench of the Golden State Warriors and the Houston Rockets. Lin was a bench warmer who never got game time but was a nice guy to have around. He was literally days away from being axed from the bench of the New York Knicks, which in all likelihood would have seen his dream crushed once and for all, when the unthinkable happened.

The New York Knicks, in sheer desperation after their two superstars Amar’e Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony were unable to play in early February, turned to the unlikely Lin. That is where the madness started! The first American player in the league of Chinese descent would quickly become the most talked about athlete on the planet.

In his first five games as an NBA regular season starter, Lin averaged 23.3 points and 7.4 assists. Those five games beat the equivalent debut figures for none other than Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Lebron James and Shaquille O’Neal! In fact they surpass any player since the modern NBA era was born in the late ’90s. His few detractors might say he also turned over a lot of ball, which is true, but to a degree that is irrelevant as the team kept winning on the back of his heroics, consistently coming back from unwinnable positions.

Speaking of his success, Lin said, “I’m just really trying to wake up every day and enjoy it, soak it all in; at the same time stay focused.”

These are the words of a man who was sleeping on his brother’s couch at the start of February. By February 20, he had made it to the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine. That is one hell of a meteoric rise. The devout Christian is being compared to Tim Tebow who also enjoyed a similar rise to fame in the most recent American football season. It will be interesting to see, but Lin should prove to be a longer, brighter story than Tebow, who has so many obvious flaws it’s hard to see his story not melting away to a nightmare end. On the other hand, Lin appears to have the sound understanding and all round-game needed for success.

Not only does he have the game, he also has sound mental grounding.

Sacramento Kings (and former Golden State Warriors) coach Keith Smart stated, “I knew him before he was Linmania. He’s still the same humble guy. The guy has not changed a bit, which is real special for a young man.”

The Knicks look to have what it takes to be a really great team. There has been talk about Stoudemire and Anthony not responding kindly to the success of Lin, and some experts believe it might be difficult for the threesome to coexist in one team. This shouldn’t be the case as three superstars is better than two, and given the Knicks keep on winning, it’s a hard argument to subscribe to. Winning form is good form and it’s hard for detractors to keep contradicting the scoreboard.

Lin is the name on everyone’s lips in China. He is the biggest thing in basketball since Yao Ming in the hoop mad country.

“Who created a Lin legend?” appeared in the United Daily News in Taiwan, and “From impossible to Linpossible: legend of a good boy” was in the China Times, coining a nickname based on the basketball prodigy’s name.

So what about the circus? Well, that will eventually subside and time will tell if Jeremy Lin is the superstar we all want him to be. The early signs are good and if courage, hard work, self-belief and talent show one’s potential, Lin has a better chance than most of rising to become one of the game’s biggest names.

For some reason the media has gone crazy with Jeremy Lin’s name. Here are ten of the best uses of the surname “Lin”, adding to the hype around this emerging star.
  • Linsanity
  • Linfluenza
  • Super Lintendo
  • Linderalla story
  • Linstant offense
  • Lining (Li Ning is a Chinese gymnastics legend)
  • Happy vaLintine’s day!
  • That’s Lincredible!
  • So Lintense!
  • Lincoming