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Linsanity Heads East, Linfects China and Taiwan

Mon, 14 May 2012 16:02:17 +0100

America can’t get enough of Jeremy Lin — nor can anyone else. Less than a week after leading the Knicks to a five-game winning streak, Taiwanese-American point guard is the most searched item on Baidu, a leading Chinese search engine, and he already has a quarter million followers on Weibo, a Twitter-like microblog. Everybody, it seems, is talking about the Harvard-educated wunderkind.

In Asia at least, most comments seem pleased to see a high-profile Chinese-American in sports. Wang Lee-hom, a Taiwanese-American celebrity with over 13 million followers on Weibo, tweeted in Chinese Tuesday: “Perhaps you all guessed what today’s Weibo is going to be? It’s about the NBA’s first ABC [American-born Chinese] Jeremy Lin! Representing Chinese right now in the U.S., breaking many long-held stereotypes, opening Americans’ eyes!”

Chinese state media are also chiming in on “Linsanity” or Linfengkuang, while comparing the 23-year-old to more established NBA stars Yao Ming and Yi Jianlian. A mere moment in the spotlight has press pondering, Can Jeremy Lin replace Yao Ming?

Chinese state media Xinhua lauds his academic background, citing his academic success as a possible advantage on the court. But it also harps on the distinction in allegiance between former Houston Rocket, Shanghai-born Yao, who was forced into early retirement this year, and the Silicon Valley native Lin. The People’s Daily, along with Xinhua, claims Yao’s success hinges on his fully Chinese upbringing, while Lin, an American, should only be seen in contrast with American luminaries such as Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan.

Still, Lin identifies with China’s national hero. “I talk to Yao after every game,” Lin told the New York Daily News. “He’s taken me out to eat every time we’re in the same city. He’s obviously a role model and a big brother to me, and we keep in touch all the time.”

Though Lin’s relationship with Yao must warm the hearts of basketball fans on the Chinese mainland, his Taiwan ancestry is a source of awkwardness for some. (Beijing still considers Taiwan — long protected by U.S. power in the Pacific — a renegade province.) “Recently, Jeremy Lin has been hot. I don’t really understand it. His parents are Taiwanese. Is he representing the China team? Why is everyone rushing to support him? We should care more about Yi Jianlian,” one Weibo user posts in Chinese. The majority of the Chinese media, though, have yet to take issue with his background, only sometimes obscuring his Taiwanese heritage by referring to him as “ethnically Chinese.”

Meanwhile, the Taiwanese press have lapped up Lin’s burst into stardom, hailing him as a role model for youth, while endearingly calling the 6-ft. 3-in. baller “the little guy from Harvard.” Lin has spent the past two summers in his parents’ homeland, coaching a free summer camp as well as speaking to teenagers about the benefit of sports.

Lin’s humble demeanor and his ease engaging with both sides of the Pacific offer a valuable lesson for both Chinese and Americans still unhealthily fixated on identity. As former TIME writer Ling Woo Liu points out on CNN.com, Lin’s fame arrives on the heels of a wave of recent incidents of discrimination against Asian-Americans in the U.S., including an offensive political ad and the hazing of Asian-American soldiers. Even after Lin’s outstanding victory over the Lakers, FoxSports.com national columnist Jason Whitlock tweeted, “Some lucky lady in NYC is gonna feel a couple inches of pain tonight.”

Whitlock has since apologized for the tweet, a vulgar slur that ought not detract from what is a truly transcendent moment for Lin and American sports. As one Beijing resident tells the Straits Times: “He typifies the American dream where any ordinary person who works hard can do great things — and more. He looks like us, he’s built like us; he sends the message: You can do it.”

— With reporting by Natalie Tso / Taipei and Vanessa Ko / Hong Kong

Your Turn, Canada: A Second-by-Second Look at Jeremy Lin Lighting Up Toronto

Mon, 14 May 2012 15:47:13 +0100

Every day, we seem to learn something new about Jeremy Lin. Here’s the latest, a basketball scouting report for the opposition: if Lin has the ball at the top of the key, and the game is on the line, do not, under any circumstances, let him shoot it.

Lin did it again. In Toronto on Tuesday night, with the game tied 87-87, rookie Knicks guard Iman Shumpert missed a pull-up jump shot with a little over 20 seconds left. But Knicks center Tyson Chandler grabbed the offensive rebound and tossed it out to Lin, standing near half-court. The Knicks would take the last shot.

But would Lin pull the trigger? He already had a productive night against the Raptors — 24 points and 11 assists, though he also committed eight turnovers. His driving layup a minute earlier had tied the game.

So there he is, half-court, with 16 seconds left. Lin, clutching the ball in his left hand, looks over at the Knicks bench for some direction.

Thirteen seconds. Lin waves his right hand at Chandler, who moves back toward the baseline. Lin is clearing space — presumably, so he can drive to the basket.

Ten seconds. A Knicks fan, sitting in the second row, is wildly pointing at Lin. “That guy is going to win it,” you can imagine him screaming at all the Raptors fans surrounding him.

Six seconds. (Even before Lin exploded onto the NBA scene, Toronto had scheduled Asian Heritage Night for this game against the Knicks.) The packed Air Canada Centre is screaming. Lin takes one dribble with his left hand, another with his right, then puts the ball between his legs. It’s false motion, really: Lin’s playing poker, measuring up the opposing point guard, Toronto’s Jose Calderon. Is he going to come out on me and dare me to drive by him? Or will Calderon really give me this last-second shot?

Three seconds. Calderon takes a step back. Stupid: with such little time left, if Lin attacks the basket, he’ll only have time to fire up a desperate layup. And the defense can come over to help, because Lin won’t have time to pass it out to an open shooter.

Sensing Calderon’s misstep, Lin sets himself and fires. Lin doesn’t have a pure outside shot, but, man, his ball hangs high in the air, like a lazy fly ball to center field. On this night, that gave the millions of fans caught up in Linsanity plenty of time to think this through. The Knicks had trailed by 17 points in the first quarter and by 12 in the fourth. No [expletive] way he’s going to do this again.

Bang. The ball clips the back of the rim and falls right through. Lin runs down court, chest-bumps with teammate Jared Jeffries. Steve Novak, Landry Fields and all the minds of millions of people captivated by Lin’s amazing run rush over to hug him.

Against the Los Angeles Lakers last Friday night, with the game still tight late, Lin was in a similar situation: alone at the top of the key, against a big guy — Lakers center Pau Gasol. Most guards would try to blow by the tree. But Lin is never frenetic. He deliberates out on the floor, and once you’ve let your guard down, he strikes. He hit that three in Gasol’s face. And yes, he did it again in Toronto.

Knicks 90, Raptors 87. There are still 0.5 seconds left — just enough time for Toronto to put up a desperate heave that falls short. The Knicks have now won six straight games with Lin as their primary playmaker. Lin now has more points — 136 — in his first five starts than any player since the NBA-ABA merger of 1976.

“I don’t know what’s going on in New York right now,” Lin’s teammate Amar’e Stoudemire told a television interviewer after the game ended. While Lin conducted his interview, Fields gave his backcourt buddy a Valentine’s Day kiss on the cheek.

At this rate, the Lin love may last forever.

Linsanity Strikes China, But Could Chinese Basketball Ever Produce a Jeremy Lin?

Mon, 14 May 2012 15:44:02 +0100

Just type the letters L and I on Baidu, and China’s top search engine sends out an automatic prompt: do you mean Lin Shuhao, the Taiwanese-American basketball breakout phenom whose English name is Jeremy Lin? (The California native prefers to render his given name as Shu-How.) On Wednesday morning Beijing time, after Lin led the New York Knicks to victory with a game-winning three-pointer and a total of 27 points and 11 assists, the 23-year-old was the hottest topic on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter-like microblog service.

Unlike in the U.S., where Lin seemed to come out of nowhere, Chinese fans had been tracking the NBA’s fourth Asian-American player since he was signed last season by the Golden State Warriors after graduating from Harvard. “He caught my attention for two things,” says Yang Yuanqing, a Beijing-based lawyer. “He is Asian and he graduated from Harvard. Those are the two things that run against stereotype.” (The fact that Lin is also a fervent evangelical Christian has resonated in the U.S., where sports fans are still digesting the legacy of the N.F.L.’s Tim Tebow, but it has been rarely discussed in China, where persecution of Christians who do not worship at officially run churches remains common.)

Lin fever in mainland China raises an interesting question. Could China, an Olympic powerhouse and homeland of Yao Ming, produce such a gifted, confident point guard?

The answer for now is, most likely, no. In the U.S., Lin was underrated by pro and college scouts because he is Asian-American. Chinese fans are indignant about a stereotyping in the States that assumes Americans of Chinese descent can be good engineers or software designers, but not brash NBA stars. The criticism is absolutely fair. But in China, Lin may not have been picked for stardom either. Firstly, at a mere 6’3”—relatively short by basketball standards—Lin might not have registered with Chinese basketball scouts, who in their quest for suitable kids to funnel into the state sports system are obsessed with height over any individual passion for hoops. That’s why the Chinese basketball league has had a history of producing strong centers—big men like 7’6” Yao or 6’11” Mengke Bateer, the ethnic Mongolian who played briefly in the NBA—but does poorly when it comes to developing point guards like Lin. The problem is compounded by the Chinese sports system’s focus on endless drills and discipline over the kind of creative play needed for successful point guards.

China dominates in formal sporting competitions like the Olympics. Even with Yao’s retirement, the NBA remains popular here, especially with Lin’s epic performances. But pick-up artists on Chinese courts have almost no chance of making it to the Chinese basketball league because they aren’t part of the official system. Top-flight athletic skill is considered something to be honed by the state, through government-run sports schools. Compare that to the public courts of the U.S., which nurture future NBA stars, even among broken backboards and cracked concrete. Or India, where any dusty stretch can serve as a cricket pitch for little boys dreaming of Tendulkar. Or Brazil, where kids in the favelas hone their football skills with nary a government grant in sight. Then they grow up to become a Pelé or a Ronaldinho.

To their credit, China’s sports planning czars understand the problem and have been pushing to extend sports beyond an elite stratum of international-class athletes. You do see a lot of people exercising outdoors in China, whether it’s a morning tai-chi session in a park or pensioners availing themselves of street-corner training equipment provided by municipal governments. But team sports for fun among normal Chinese kids? It’s just not a tradition yet. (Pick-up hoops games in the big Chinese cities tend to be among people in their 20s.) In the meantime, the systemic failures of China’s sports machine are symbolized by the country’s Olympic basketball team, which consistently fails to meet the expectations of Chinese fans. Only one starter on China’s national hoops squad, it should be noted, is below 6’7”. Jeremy Lin? Even if his parents weren’t from Taiwan, China’s cross-strait rival, he wouldn’t measure up.

—with reporting by Jessie Jiang/Beijing

Oh Great, Now ‘Linning’ Is Becoming a Meme

Mon, 14 May 2012 15:39:37 +0100

As far as memes go, “Linning” is a bit tougher to pull off than “Tebowing.” As fans, for some unexplained reason, clamor to copy our instant idols (Tim Tebow, Jeremy Lin, etc.), we search for defining gestu to replicate.

For Tebow fans (and those mocking him, too), the obvious kneeling-in-prayer pose took over the Internet, with people posting photos of themselves with their head down and their knee bent. Whether they were praying or mocking was left to the imagination.

In the effort to capture a piece of the “Linsanity” created by five breakout games from New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin, who breaks the mold with his Harvard degree and Asian-American background, fans have clasped onto his elaborate handshake, which includes him putting both hands up around his eyes like spectacles.

There’s a whole website, Linning.com, dedicated to replicating Lin’s moves. With the football season over, maybe we just needed something else from the sports world to latch onto and discuss incessantly.

But this meme isn’t for the lonely. Since Lin does this handshake with teammates, the “nerdy glasses” look must get pulled off with another, requiring two to meme.

Tebow, known as much for his outspoken devotion to Jesus, has reportedly inspired Lin to share his Christian faith. Now they can share their Internet memes along with their Bible verses.

Can Jeremy Lin End the MSG/Time Warner Cable War?

Mon, 14 May 2012 15:25:24 +0100

He may have outplayed NBA superstar Kobe Bryant in the Garden Friday night, but the pressure keeps mounting on New York Knicks guard Jeremy Lin. Now, the pro-basketball Cinderella Story is being counted on to end the entrenched carriage war between the Madison Square Garden Company and Time Warner Cable.

Since Jan. 1, about 2.8 million Time Warner Cable subscribers have been unable to see regional sports telecasts of not only Knicks home games, but also those for local NHL teams the New York Rangers, New Jersey Devils and Buffalo Sabres. (Time Warner, the corporate parent of Time.com, spun off Time Warner Cable in 2009.) Time Warner has been in a lengthy dispute with MSG, which owns the regional cable rights to those teams.

Enter Lin, the Harvard-educated son of first-generation Taiwanese immigrants who has emerged as a playmaking star for the moribund Knicks in the last two weeks, after having been cut by two other NBA teams. With Lin leading the Knicks to a five-game winning streak, local news outlets have openly pondered whether he could produce enough buzz to, perhaps, finally trigger revolt among Time Warner’s somewhat indifferent New York subscriber base that could force Time Warner’s hand.

And on Twitter, several bloggers are agitating for a pay-per-view option for home Knick games. “Knicks get hot, demand spikes for MSG, let us pay a premium for spot access and everybody Lins,” LinkedIn (CEO Jeff Weiner suggested. Traffic to the Turner Sports-operated New York Knicks homepage is up 500 percent recently.

An MSG representative told us Monday that pay per view is “not in our plans right now.” But the company has added fuel to the carriage dispute discussion by touting its 70 percent year-to-year ratings increases for Knicks games on the MSG Network featuring Lin—a bump that has come without Time Warner homes.

So far, however, Time Warner Cable officials have shown no sign of capitulation. “Unfortunately, MSG is still demanding a 53 percent increase,” read a Time Warner statement Monday, re-asserting the company’s position that MSG reneged on an agreement last year for 6.5 percent fee increases. “Our hope is that they will go back to their pre-December demands and close a reasonable deal. It’s important to remember that they declined our request for an extension in December, thus preventing our customers from viewing games on MSG. Fortunately, fans still have access to some games via other networks.

Time Warner Cable points out the national visibility on cable of Knicks games. Sure, local fans missed Lin leading the Knicks over the Minnesota Timberwolves Saturday, but they were able to catch Friday night’s contest against the Lakers on ESPN, and five of the team’s next nine games are on either ESPN, ABC, TNT or YES, the regional sports outlet for the New Jersey Nets.

There’s also the fact that cable alternatives like satellite and telecom services are not options in some local areas. For example, DirecTV is not an option for many surrounded by tall buildings in Manhattan.

It’s true that there’s been a rash of cave-ins recently by cable and satellite service providers. In another carriage conflict last October, for example, Fox Networks used its effective “KeepMyNets” PR campaign to hold DirecTV’s feet to the fire. That campaign included commercials in which Kurt Sutter, outspoken creator of hit FX drama Sons of Anarchy, urged DirecTV-subscribing fans of his show to petition their satellite company. It worked—not only was Fox able to secure hefty fee increases for bigger channels like FX, it improved the position for obscure outlets like Fuel TV, too.

But while Sutter and American Horror Story creator Ryan Murphy (who also participated in the KeepMyNets campaign) were able to build public pressure before DirecTV was able to pull Fox Network channels, Lin faces a more entrenched opponent.

Time Warner is coming off a fourth quarter during which it reported income and revenue that both outpaced investor forecasts. And facing what it has characterized as unreasonable demands from Knicks boss and MSG executive chairman James Dolan to not only increase sports carriage fees by 53 percent, but also start running the little-seen music channel FUSE, Time Warner officials have privately said they’re drawing a line in the sand in regard to what have become spiraling network renewal fees in the MSO business.

They believe the impact of these negotiations will have a ripple effect on future carriage talks. Of course, Time Warner has itself to blame for the escalating carriage fees, with its 20-year, $3 billion regional sports deal with the Lakers setting records and providing Dolan and MSG with a rallying cry. With the Knicks not having won a championship in 40 years and the Lakers enjoying the rabid Southern California following that comes with 11 titles won over that span, Time Warner has argued the apples-and-oranges nature of that comparison.

“Jeremy Lin is a good player but all the hype is because he’s Asian. ...

Mon, 14 May 2012 15:25:58 +0100

“Jeremy Lin is a good player but all the hype is because he's Asian. Black players do what he does every night and don't get the same praise.”
— Boxer Floyd Mayweather, Jr., posting on his Twitter account about New York Knicks breakout star Jeremy Lin. He didn’t stop there — he argued that NBA players get penalized for speaking up and he’s not sure why he gets criticized while ESPN analysts say what they want

Jeremy Lin Makes Us All American

Mon, 14 May 2012 15:35:47 +0100

The only Asian American in the NBA is not just breaking stereotypes, he's also redefining his country

After watching my first World Series in 1977, I wanted to be Reggie Jackson. I bought a big Reggie poster. I ate Reggie candy bars. I entered a phase during which I insisted on having the same style of glasses Reggie had: gold wire frames with the double bar across.

As a 9-year-old son of immigrants, I was claiming Reggie and, through him, this country. Every time I imitated his explosive swing, every time I adjusted my glasses like he did, with a thrust of the chin, a touch of swagger, I imagined that my family had been American as long as the Yankees had. Such an act of imagining, in its own little way, is what any of us means when we call ourselves “American.”

I thought about that on Friday night when, for the first time, I saw Jeremy Lin play basketball. Lin, as anyone not in a cave now knows, is a point guard for the New York Knicks, a backup who has become a Twitter-age supernova. Friday he faced off against Kobe Bryant’s Lakers and prevailed, reeling off 38 points in the victory. Saturday he led them to their fifth consecutive win. Who knows how long this sensation can keep scoring. But another sensation — the feeling of awakening Lin has inspired across the country — is real and seems likely to last.

In the stands Friday some fans wore Lin’s visage on cardboard masks. You couldn’t tell what age or race they were. You could see only how they wished to be seen: as a 23-year-old second-generation Taiwanese-American Harvard grad from Palo Alto, Calif., of late with a golden touch. These fans, first-, second-, or 10th-generation, cheered the underdog newcomer and strummed anew those chords of narrative in which anyone with grit, talent and a little luck can make it in America.

Their embrace of Lin has made millions of Asian Americans feel vicariously, thrillingly embraced. Not invisible. Not presumed foreign. Just part of the team, belonging in the game. It’s felt like a breakout moment: for Lin, for Asian America and, thus, for America.

Context is everything. Earlier this week a Senate candidate in Michigan unveiled a campaign ad using Chinese-accented broken English to suggest his opponent was doing China’s bidding. (“Your economy get very weak. Ours get very good. We take your jobs,” says an actress bicycling through rice paddies.) Friday night in Madison Square Garden a fan waved a crude red and yellow poster with the clichéd Chinese restaurant font made of jagged brushstrokes. A sign like that could have been used to mock, to make the Asian an outsider. Instead, it was used to worship. EMPEROR LIN, it proclaimed.

There have been, in recent years, many Asian American pioneers in the public eye who’ve defied the condescendingly complimentary “model minority” stereotype: actors like Lucy Liu, artists like Maya Lin, moguls like Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh. They are known, often admired. But Lin is something new: an Asian American whom millions of other Americans want to be.

Identity in America is complicated but it’s also simple: it’s about whom you identify with and who identifies with you. Lin is the only Asian American in the NBA today and one of the few in any professional U.S. sport. His arrival is surely leading other talented Asian American athletes this week to contemplate a pro career. Just as surely, though, it’s leading many non-Asian non-athletes to expand their identities; to redefine, just by their rooting interest, “American.”

Jeremy Lin the point guard might transform his team and his sport. We shall see. Jeremy Lin the citizen has already changed his country.

Liu is author of several books, including The Gardens of Democracy and The Accidental Asian. He was a speechwriter and policy adviser to President Clinton.

The ‘Linsanity’ Effect: NY Knicks’ Guard Jeremy Lin’s Surprise Success Leads to ...

Mon, 14 May 2012 15:32:30 +0100

The phenomenon of undrafted Harvard grad and previous NBA benchwarmer Jeremy Lin is translating into serious money, as Knicks’ ticket prices soar and stores can’t keep up with demand for Lin jerseys and “Linsanity” merchandise.

Not long after being let go by two NBA teams (Rockets, Warriors), Lin is the biggest story in basketball. He’s led the Knicks to five straight wins, highlighted by a dominant, 38-point performance against the Lakers, all without Carmelo Anthony or Amar’e Stoudemire, the Knicks’ two perennial All-Stars, in the lineup. Or perhaps the Lin phenomenon has occurred partly because Anthony and Stoudemire haven’t been playing—if they were, the ball probably wouldn’t have been in Lin’s hands quite as much.

In any event, fans can’t seem to get enough of Lin and his “Lincredible” underdog success story. Since he started his magical run on February 4, Lin’s #17 jersey has been the NBA’s best seller. Yahoo! Sports also reports that since Linsanity surfaced, Knicks merchandise sales have been tops in the NBA, sports stores in midtown Manhattan have sold out multiple shipments of Lin gear, the Knicks have jacked up ticket prices by 27%, and the stock price of the team ownership (Madison Square Garden Co.) has risen 6.2%.

The teams facing Lin haven’t been the only ones caught off guard (excuse the pun) by the point guard’s amazing play. Apparel manufacturers seem unable to keep up with the surprise demand for Lin gear. The Knicks Store website currently states that it is sold out of Lin’s home and road jerseys. The NBA.com store, meanwhile, offers plenty of Stoudemire and Anthony jerseys, as well as those of former Knicks like Charles Oakley and Walt Frazier, but, at least for the time being, not the guy showing up on SportsCenter highlights every 15 minutes.

As is expected in today’s economy, though, when official methods come up short, entrepreneurs on the web fill in the gaps. A “Jeremy Lin” search at eBay yields 6,598 results, including signed playing cards, jerseys, and T-shirts. At design-your-own merchandise site Café Press, there are currently 21 different designs, including Linsanity pajamas and Linsanity iPad cases, both with Chinese lettering.

Lin’s breakout would be a great story no matter what his ethnic background, but the fact that so few NBA players look like him—his parents are from Taiwan—has boosted the Lin phenomenon to the next level, complete with bad jokes about Lin proving it’s false to assume that “Asians can’t drive.”

Speaking of Asia, that’s where Linsanity may be its most insane. Reuters and others note that the biggest market for the NBA outside North America is China. Tens of millions of Chinese fans have been watching Lin’s highlights on state-run sports channels over the past week. Especially after the retirement of China’s Yao Ming last year, Lin looks to be a crowd favorite—and a dream spokesperson for all sorts of brands and products.

He may be marketing gold, but will Lin be a Knick in the long run? The New York Post is already speculating on the likelihood that another team could scoop up Lin next summer, when he is expected to be a restricted free agent. Lin currently makes a bit over $700K—yep, apparently that’s what you get in the NBA for barely making the team and sitting on the end of the bench for months—but when he’s a free agent, some team might be willing to offer him $5 million or more to bring Linsanity to their home court. The Knicks probably wouldn’t have that sort of money to sign Lin, given the salary cap and the contracts of other players on the squad.

Wouldn’t that be most “linsane” of all: Here’s a guy who wasn’t drafted, who didn’t even receive a scholarship offer by a Division I college team, and who few NBA teams seemed to want a couple months ago. All of a sudden, he’s the talk of the NBA, and possibly could be the subject of a hot bidding war.

That’s a back story that fans—and advertising and marketing executives—just have to love.

Linfatuation: Fans and Retailers Rush for Jeremy Lin Merchandise

Mon, 14 May 2012 15:23:14 +0100

Suffering from a case of Linsanity? Been unable to get your hands on your new favorite NBA player’s jersey? Searched high and low for something to rep Jeremy Lin hard during his upcoming showdown with Kobe in Friday’s game, only to find nothing? Sounds about right, because until just early Friday morning, there wasn’t anything. At all.

The Knicks scrambled to produce the point guard’s souvenir jersey for eager fans in time for Friday’s game, and the Knicks’ online store started taking orders for the jerseys (going for $54.95) and “Linsanity” T-shirts ($19.95) on Thursday morning, the New York Times reports.

However, nothing could be shipped before Feb. 20, so a special order ?yola-link-is-coming=truewas made for the die-hard fans:

In a cramped, windowless room in the Garden, a few employees arranged orange numerals and white letters on blank blue Knicks jerseys, then lowered hot presses onto them. And, voilà: the only legal No. 17 Lin jerseys in the city, other than the ones the Knicks’ player wears, were ready for sale.

200 Lin jerseys were produced on-site at Madison Square Garden. (TIME’s Sean Gregory noted that some 1,000 Lin jerseys had sold out before Friday night’s game.) Local stores, at least in the New York area, will have jerseys ready in a few weeks.

The Bay Area-bred basketball star has quickly been crowned the most famous Asian-American in sports. David Chang, owner of New York’s Momofuku restaurants, sang his praises to the Times, while Hua Hsu wrote at Bloomberg that Lin has sparked a “new Lin-centric lexicon” that is capturing the “feverish excitement of Knicks fans.”

“New York had come down with a case of ‘Lin-sanity.’ He was, to borrow Charlie Sheen’s cherished word, ‘Lin-ing.’ All he did was ‘Lin’—a riff on a DJ Khaled song,” Hsu writes. Rather than having Lin’s ascent become a conversation “cultural capital,” identity, and politics, Hsu encourages the fun and ludicrous that comes with fandom. “Clear thinking is the enemy. There are nicknames to be invented, menu items that need renaming, and raps to be written.”

It’s Official: Linsanity Is for Real

Mon, 14 May 2012 15:24:42 +0100

With a big win against the Los Angeles Lakers Friday night, Jeremy Lin continues to wow crowds and stun announcers.

All right, Jeremy Lin. We get it. You’re for real.

Steve Novak, a backup sharpshooter for the New York Knicks, wants to amend a statement he made before Lin ignited Madison Square Garden on Friday night, on national television, by torching Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers for 38 points in a 92-85 Knicks win. “I take back everything I said, that it’s unrealistic that he’ll average 25 points and 10 assists,” Novak says. “I’m now going to say he’ll average 35 and 11.” Entering last night’s game, Lin – the former Harvard star, and NBA non-entity – had scored more than 20 points in three straight outings, all Knick wins. “After the first game, it was, ‘wow, he played great,’” Novak says. “After the second game, it was ‘wow, he’s really stepping up.’ After the third game, he started making believers out of everyone. After this game … I know it’s early. But he keeps getting better every game. It’s real. I’m saying in the next game, he might score 50. I feel like I’m a part of history.”

He is. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the 89 points Lin has scored in his first three starts is the most of any NBA player since the NBA-ABA merger in 1976-1977. That’s right: more than Jordan, more than Bird, more than LeBron. Last night’s game against the Lakers was supposed to quiet some of the hype. After all, Lin had lit up a bad New Jersey Nets team, a tired Utah Jazz team, and an awful Washington Wizards team. These were the Lakers, and Kobe Bryant. Sure, Los Angeles is no longer dominant. But the Lakers still employ the same starting five — Bryant, Pau Gasol, Derek Fisher, Andrew Bynum, and Metta World Peace, née Ron Artest — that won the NBA title two years ago.

Instead, within the game’s first five minutes, Lin hit a three-pointer, two jumpers and a layup, threw a no-look pass to Tyson Chandler for a dunk, had a steal, and drew a loose ball foul on World Peace. (What’s foul about World Peace?) Later, Lin’s twisting layup against Fisher drew admiring ahhhhhhs. By halftime, Lin had 18 points, and the crowds rushed through the Garden’s corridors to grab Lin merchandise. “Where’s the Lin gear at?” one man yelled while draped in a Taiwanese flag. The shoppers, however, left disappointed. Some 1,000 Lin jerseys sold out before tip-off.

Like the point guard Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni mentored in Phoenix, two-time NBA MVP Steve Nash, Lin has a knack for worming his way into the middle of the paint, and keeping his dribble alive while defenders surround him. “He’s a spinning top,” says former Knick Anthony Mason, one of several team alums on hand to see Lin. He’s also fearless, going shot-for-shot with Bryant, who finished with 34 points, down the stretch. At one point, Lin was matched up with Lakers center Pau Gasol at the top of the key. Most shorter guards look to drive around the bigger trees. Instead, Lin launched a long three-pointer — outside shooting was supposed to be Lin’s weakness — right in Gasol’s face. Swish. At another point, Lin pumped-faked a three-pointer from the corner, took one dribble in and launched a high-arcing jumper that almost hit the ceiling. The New York crowd did, after it fell through the net.

Lin even took a charge in the last minute to seal the game. “This is a once in a lifetime thing,” D’Antoni says. “I don’t know what to tell you.” Lin’s sheepish smiles let you know that he can’t quite believe what he’s doing either, and he’s loving the surprise as much as we are. “His personality rubs off on everybody,” D’Antoni. “It’s becoming a love-fest. Sloppy. Sappy.” But the love is certainly real.