l*****9
发帖数: 9501 | 1 Knicks' guard creating an international Lin-sation
By Mike Lopresti, USA TODAY
And on its ninth day, "Linsanity" rested.
Jeremy Lin, global phenomenon, spent Sunday afternoon at Hamilton College in
central New York state, watching brother Joseph Lin score four points in
his final home game, one (suddenly very, very familiar) face among the 783
in Scott Field House.
Elsewhere, of course, the basketball-speaking world has gone gaga.
"I feel like I'm in a dream right now," Lin told reporters Saturday night in
Minneapolis, after more heroics, another New York Knicks' victory, another
page in a fairy tale that will last for … nobody knows.
USA TODAY Sports on Twitter!
To get the latest sports news from USA TODAY, including game results,
columns and features, follow us on Twitter at @USATODAYSports.
What we know is that this is not just about basketball anymore. Not just
about a point guard for the Knicks, even as appears to be waving the most
potent magic wand since Harry Potter. He has turned Manhattan into Fantasy
Island, this living, breathing, shot-making, assist-dispensing, defense-
playing winning lottery ticket.
The Knicks are rejuvenated, not by the glittering names of Carmelo Anthony
and Amar'e Stoudemire and their $18 million contracts but a new kid on the
block making $762,195 and a little more than a week ago sitting on the end
of the bench on the verge of being cut.
The NBA is abuzz. The Minnesota Timberwolves crowd of 20,232 Saturday night
was its largest at the Target Center in eight years.
His opponents are impressed. "If you can go back and look, his skill level
was probably there from the beginning, but no one ever noticed," said Los
Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant, having experienced the rare sensation of
being outscored 38-34 by a Harvard alumnus. "It's a testament to
perseverance and hard work. It is a good example to kids everywhere."
His alma mater is delighted. Harvard has produced five presidents of the
United States, but only four NBA players, and none since 1954, until Lin.
His new home on the East Coast is fascinated. "It's everywhere," teammate
Landry Fields mentioned of the frenzy. "He's really touched a lot of lives."
The West Coast of his childhood is enthralled. "Every bar, every grocery
line, you hear it," Peter Diepenbrock, Lin's coach at Palo Alto High School,
said over the phone. "I talked to a friend who had been on a ski lift at
Tahoe. He said there were 15 conversations going on around him about Jeremy.
People saying, 'I actually like the NBA now. I have a reason to watch."'
The Asia of his roots is enchanted. Chinese Taipei president Ma Ying-jeou
convened his new cabinet last week with exhortations for teamwork. The
example he cited: Jeremy Lin.
All this on less than two weeks' notice. Rome might not have been built in a
day, but full-blown Lin-mania is up and running in five games. Five Knicks'
victories. Five 20-plus scoring Lin performances. Over his five-game
stretch, tickets on the secondary market to see the Knicks have jumped 27%,
from an average of $407 to $517,
Having the last LOL
In the eye of the storm is the 6-3 son of two 5-6 engineers from Taiwan,
never offered an athletic scholarship, never drafted by the NBA, waived,
dismissed, overlooked, undervalued. He's a former Erie BayHawk and former
Reno Bighorn in the Developmental League. A former editor of his high school
paper, former summer intern with a California state senator, the A's on his
report card as straight as the edge of a ruler.
"Mom," Diepenbrock said, "didn't give him a lot of time to play video games."
Only six weeks ago, this came from Lin's Twitter: "Everytime i try to get
into Madison Square Garden, the security guards ask me if im a trainer. LOL."
But he is having the last LOL. Only nine days ago he had scored 114 points
in his entire NBA career. He's scored 134 in his past five games, including
109 in his first four starts — the most since the NBA-ABA merger of 1976-77.
Now he's a basketball rock star, whose Twitter followers went from 70,000 to
196, 709 in three days. According to Delivery Agent, which operates the
Knicks' online store, traffic increased 3,000% last week.
Now his name, has been contorted into a buffet of cutesy uses. Lin (insert
noun, verb or adjective here).
Now the Timberwolves fans chant "Over-rated!" when he shoots only 1-for-12
in the second half, Nine days ago, he would have been as anonymous as the
cotton candy vendor.
"It's nice that he was even rated," coach Mike D'Antoni joked afterward.
"It's been pretty surreal," 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."
Wake up where? Usually, the couch in brother Josh's one-bedroom apartment on
the Lower East Side of New York. The plot keeps thickening, and all of it
seemingly from Hollywood.
There is something new and old to the Lin circus. It's needed barely a week
to sweep across the basketball landscape like a wind-blown grass fire. How
modern. If a virus can travel so quickly around the world today, so can
celebrity.
Yet at its emotional core are the ancient elements of a compelling underdog
epic: rejection, persistence, setback, surprise, triumph, some luck.
The message is as old as imagination itself: "Anything's possible," Fields
said.
Lin is Rocky Balboa. He is Fernandomania, when Fernando Valenzuela started
his Los Angeles pitching career in 1981 with an 8-0 record and five shutouts
, and every start in Dodger Stadium became a Mexican fiesta. Of course
Fernando did it well before technology created instant celebrities on a
grand scale.
He is devout and open about his beliefs. Sound familiar?
Yes, he's Tim Tebow in short pants, and what are the odds we could have such
a tale of two faithful in the same calendar air space? Except, Tebow was a
first-round draft pick, while the NBA passed Lin as if he were 5-3. Tebow
came from the football hotbed of Florida's Swamp, and Lin from the SAT
hotbed of Harvard Yard.
What is dramatic is the rainbow coalition that now gathers around Lin. Asian
-Americans, Ivy Leaguers, Christians, lovers of little-guy stories. Oh yeah,
and Knicks fans.
Plus those who barely follow the game. That is the absolute signature of a
true sensation.
"I pick up the paper and all of sudden I'm reading that the guy who used to
Xerox papers in my office scored 38 points against the Lakers," California
state senator Joe Simitian said over the phone about his former intern.
"He was a relatively quiet kid, very polite. Obviously he was a bright kid
with a lot of talent, and he shows up in my office and wants to answer the
telephones and do the Xeroxing.
"I would call myself a casual basketball fan. He scored 38 and Kobe 34,
right? For me to know what two players scored in a game, I wouldn't normally
know that off the top of my head. For anyone who ever had a dream this is a
great story."
A star is born?
This is a Lin-derella story that's made intriguing stops along the way.
From Taiwan to Palo Alto, where nearly 50% of citizens over 25 hold graduate
degrees.
"When we won the state championship," Diepenbrock said of his time with Lin,
"we went back to the high school and it was like, `Great job, but did you
see what the robotics club did?'"
Diepenbrock's prediction for his star back then? Easy. "He'd be an engineer
making a ton of money in Silicon Valley."
Palo Alto to Harvard.
Harvard to summer leagues and developmental teams and aborted stays with
Golden State and Houston.
And now to Broadway. Lin-sanity. Even though that description earns no
endorsement from its namesake.
"I'm just thankful to everybody, but I don't know," he said. "I guess we
need to change it to something more team related."
Good luck.
As the fervor grows, the outside world will look for cracks, because that is
what the outside world does. Was a star born or something more fleeting?
"The only thing I can say with totally certainty," Diepenbrock said, "is I
have no idea where this is going."
Who does? But for the moment — in a story of wonder nobody expected — look
at how many are enjoying the ride.
Contributing: Brian Murphy in Minneapolis; Tom Pedulla in New York Rachel
Shuster and Jeff Zillgitt in McLean, Va. |
|
