by Maisie Allison
Lin, a Harvard graduate who was an undrafted player in the NBA's developmental league just two months ago, has stunned the sports world this week, transforming the Knicks from an "overpaid group of cranky malcontents to giddy batch of hopping, laughing lunatics in the span of about 72 hours." Lin scored an average of 25 points for the Knicks in three games. Will Leitch is loving it:
The best part is how viscerally pleasurable it is to watch Lin play: His game is flashy, almost showoffy, and requires him to have guts, guile and flair in equal measure. The drama of it is, it's obvious, what's most fun for him. It is all you could possibly want as a feel-good story. Including — and most important — the wins.
Lin is the first American-born player of Chinese or Taiwanese descent in the NBA. Hua Hsu reflects on the point guard's unlikely triumph:
The hard-working, devout son of Taiwanese immigrants, he hadn’t been highly touted out of high school or college. He had been underestimated, time and again, by coaches and scouts. His Asian heritage had been the subject of ridicule from fans and opponents alike. Yet he had survived, and here he was, excelling in one of the world’s most legendary basketball arenas. … For the Asian-American athlete, there are few parallels with Jackie Robinson or Billie Jean King or others who stepped forward to break some kind of barrier and reshape society’s sense of what was possible. The promise of these milestones is that they might ultimately mean nothing — that Asian-American athletes like Lin might continue to prove themselves good enough, and that someday their presence will seem normal and unspectacular.
More on what Lin's rise means for Asian-Americans here and here. Jake Simpson explains how the Internet made Lin a cultural icon in a matter of days:
Lin's skills on the court are dwarfed by his larger-than-life image online, and his ceiling as a player is probably a serviceable backup point guard/poor man's J.J. Barea. But because he's playing in 2012—not 2002 or 1992 or 1982—he's a lock to be a relevant for at least the rest of the season even if he doesn't break 10 points or five assists in another game. He checks all the Tebow-esque boxes: college star who was expected to fail in the pros, member of a group with staggering purchasing power (Asians/Asian Americans vs. devout Christians), key position on a team that needs helps to make the playoffs (point guard vs. QB)… the list goes on. And given the NBA's desire to continue its expansion into Asian markets, it's in the league's best interest to keep Lin in the public eye for as long as possible.
He is also deeply religious. Andrew Leonard worries that the hype surrounding Lin's success is premature:
[Y]ou can like Lin, and you can root for him, and yet still find his instantaneous, Tim Tebow-like ascent (in more ways than one!) to pop-cultural phenom — LINSANITY! — to be more than a little disorienting. Jeremy Lin is the latest example of how our socially-mediated, always-on world can churn any data point, any outrage, any act of heroism or moment of despair into a full-scale world-wide frenzy in less time than it took me to write this sentence.
As an early test, Lin will face the Lakers tonight.
The Dish 