On the morning of Jeremy’s first NBA start against the Utah Jazz on Monday, February 6, the Knicks’ webmaster made some changes to the team’s website. The smiling face of youthful Jeremy Lin greeted eyeballs on the splash page. The marketing department sent out an e-blast with “Linsanity!” in the subject line.
The Knicks were shorthanded without Amar’e Stoudemire, who was granted bereavement leave after his older brother, Hazell, was killed in a car crash in Florida. Carmelo Anthony tried to play but had to leave the game after six minutes because of a strained right groin. Time to step up.
Jeremy set the tempo again with dazzling dribbling and sweet drives to the basket. A nifty midair hand change for a reverse layup prompted the Knicks’ home crowd to chant “MVP! MVP!” They were obviously still in a celebratory mood after cheering their beloved New York Giants to a come-from-behind victory over the New England Patriots a day before in Super Bowl XLVI.
Jeremy scored a career-high 28 points against Utah, showing that his 25-point performance against the New Jersey Nets was no fluke. The fact that Jeremy orchestrated a win against a decent team attracted some notice around the league. But this was going to be a busy week for the Knicks. On Wednesday, they had a quick road trip to play the Washington Wizards, then a return home to host the Kobe-led Lakers on Friday night, followed by another road trip to Minnesota to play the T-Wolves on Saturday night.
No Blues in This Guy
A Facebook page titled “Jeremy Lin’s Blue Tongue” was launched after NBA TV cameras caught him sticking out his tongue — in exhilaration — toward the end of the win over Utah Jazz. There it was — a blue streak on the fleshy muscular organ in his mouth.
It leads me to wonder if cases of Gatorade G2 Blueberry-Pomegranate Thirst Quencher started flying off the shelves.
Awaiting Jeremy in the nation’s capital was John Wall.
Remember him? He was the No. 1 pick in the 2010 draft — and Jeremy’s foil in the final game of Summer League, the game where Jeremy played flawlessly and earned a roster spot with the Golden State Warriors.
On this evening, Jeremy was being guarded closely by Wall when he employed a crossover dribble and blew past the defender like his sneakers were nailed to the floor. The lane opened up like the parting of the Red Sea. Instead of kissing the ball off the glass with a layin, Jeremy elevated and threw down a one-handed dunk that even excited the Wizards’ home crowd.
“I think they messed up their coverage,” Jeremy said after the game.26
Chalk up Jeremy’s first double-double — 23 points and 10 assists in a 107 – 93 victory.
A tsunami was building. It wouldn’t crest yet. That would happen two days later when Kobe and the Lakers came to the Garden. But for now, “the fluke no longer looks so flukey,” wrote Howard Beck in the New York Times. “The aberration is not fading away. Jeremy Lin is not regressing to the mean, whatever that mean is supposed to be.”27
Midterm Exam
And then the Los Angeles Lakers rolled into the Big Apple for a Friday night game that sizzled with anticipation.
Here were two storied franchises from the nation’s top two most populous cities squaring off, and the story line of Jeremy versus Kobe was too great to pass up for the dozens of scribes and TV news producers covering the Knicks beat.
After lighting the fuse on Linsanity, surely Jeremy would be put in his place by the great Kobe Bryant. Surely the thirty-three-year-old Lakers star had taken notice of Linsanity and would show this young buck a thing or two. Surely Jeremy wasn’t still sleeping on his brother’s couch.
Actually, he wasn’t. Now he was sleeping on the couch of his teammate Landry Fields. The night before his breakout game against the New Jersey Nets, Jeremy found himself homeless. The comfy sofa on which he laid his head at his brother and sister-in-law’s pad on the Lower East Side was reserved for friends coming over for a party.
Landry heard about Jeremy’s plight and said he could crash at his place in White Plains, New York, which was close to the Knicks’ training facility. Landry had a nice large brown couch in the living room. A flat-screen TV, refrigerator, and bathroom were steps away. What more did a bachelor need?
Once the Knicks got hot, there was no way that Jeremy or Landry were going to change a winning routine. Jeremy was sleeping on that couch, whether he wanted to or not.
And now a date loomed with Kobe Bryant — the player Jeremy shared a birthday with — in the heart of downtown Manhattan. It’s hard to describe how the American and global media apparatus had trained its lens on Madison Square Garden that evening, but they had. A galaxy of celebrities was on hand, including filmmaker and Knicks superfan Spike Lee, actor Ben Stiller, erstwhile wrestler and actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and New York Giants defensive end Justin Tuck.
A lot — really a lot — was riding on the sinewy shoulders of Jeremy Shu-How Lin. He had everything to gain and much to lose, which is why you have to love what he did that night. All the pressure, all the hype, all the microphones, all the cameras examining every muscle twitch — and Jeremy didn’t flinch.
I mean, laying down 38 points on Kobe and the Lakers was ridiculous. He made everything, including scoring 9 of the team’s first 13 points to help the Knicks build a large lead. Analysts like to call that “making a statement.” He nailed short jumpers, put a deft spin move on Derek Fisher to beat him to the hoop, and flung in a 3-pointer from the left baseline. Kobe nearly matched him, scoring 24 of his 34 points in the second half — but Bryant left the Garden on the wrong side of a 92 – 85 Knicks victory.
There was a telling moment when the torch of popularity may have been passed. Derek Fisher had been guarding Jeremy, but on this possession, Kobe and Jeremy were running down the court together. Kobe reached out and put his hand on Jeremy’s body. This was a subtle yet effective way for Kobe to establish defensive dominance and put Jeremy in a subservient position.
Jeremy, without hesitation, quickly but firmly pushed the hand away, as if to say, There’s a new sheriff in town.
Jeremy proved he was no one-week wonder in outplaying Kobe Bryant and the Lakers team. He was being called the “Taiwanese Tebow” for the way he impacted his teammates and lifted their games — and for the forthright and earnest way he spoke about his faith afterward.
The hype surrounding Jeremy would only grow. He was legit. The guy was for real. With the victory over the Lakers, he had four straight games with at least 20 points and 7 assists. In the history of the NBA — since the 1976 NBA/ABA merger — no player had scored more points in his first four starts.
More importantly, Jeremy had embraced the challenge of beating one of the league’s top franchises in his first nationally televised game.
A Life of Its Own
With Kobe and the Lakers sent packing, New Yorkers couldn’t stop talking about Jeremy Lin, and headline writers couldn’t help themselves.
Gentlemen, start your puns.
The headlines ranged from the good to the bad to the pathetic:
• “Linsightful Lessons of Linsanity” (Huffington Post)
• “American-Born Linderella Is Pride of China” (NPR)
• “Just Lin Time: Knicks Phenom Saving Season” (Chicago Tribune)
• “Never Lin-visible, Knicks Sensation Just Needed a Chance” (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• “New York Knicks Legend Willis Reed Gives Ringing Lin-dorsement” (ESPN)
• “Linternational House of Fancakes” (sbnation.com)
• “Is Super Lintendo All-Hype or the Real Deal?” (The Renegade Rip)
Linsanity even invaded the Sunday morning pulpit. The Rev. John Lin — who was no relation but was kidded nonetheless about sharing the same last name of New York’s favorite son — began his sermon at Redeemer Presbyterian on East 68th by announcing that he would be teaching out of Matthew 1 about the incarnation.
“Or if you’re a Knicks fan, you can call it the Lincarnation,” he quipped.28
And that was the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Since there are twenty-seven pages of words that start with the prefix in- in my American Heritage Dictionary, and I count an average of forty words per page, this means you have approximately 1,080 combinations to choose from if you want to have some fun with Lin.
“I didn’t know you could turn Lin into so many things, because we’ve never done it before,” Jeremy told Kevin Armstrong of the New York Daily News. “Me and my family just laugh. I guess we underestimated how creative people can be.”29
I think it’s going to take some time before we see the last wordplay on Jeremy’s last name — and the media is going to hang each new variation around his neck like a Knicks’ warm-up top. It has certainly taken a life of its own, but all you can do is glin and bear it.
Live from New York, It’s Saturday Night!
You know you’re sitting atop the fulcrum of pop culture when Saturday Night Live does a hilarious skit about you, and that was the case for Jeremy as he turned Manhattan on its head:
Announcer No. 1 (playing it straight): From the set of “New York Sports Now,” I’m Dan Mardell for our special report on Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin and the Linsanity surrounding him. Despite the Knicks’ loss to New Orleans, the Big Apple is still in the middle of a Jeremy Lin Linvasion. Fellas, do you have Linsanity?
Announcer No. 2 (excited): You better lock me up. I am criminally Linsane!
Announcer No. 3 (really excited): My feelings are Lintense!
Announcer No. 4 (over-the-top excited): It’s Lindescribable! I mean, I’m literally lin love with this Jeremy Lin!
Announcer No. 1 (playing it straight): I agree that we’ll never get tired of Lin puns.
Announcer No. 4 (once more, but still over the top): As Charlie Sheen would say, Linning!30
The Knicks had a tall order following their win over the Lakers: hop on the team plane and fly to Minneapolis for a game the following night. Prior to tip-off, Jeremy and his “roommate” Landry Fields enacted a rather unique pregame ritual that they had tried out against the Washington Wizards four days earlier.
Facing each other in front of the Knicks’ bench, Jeremy pretended to flip through an imaginary book that Landry was holding in his hands. Then the pair pretended to take off their reading glasses, which they placed into imaginary pocket protectors. The routine ended with both players simultaneously pointing to the heavens.
OK, so it wasn’t as dramatic as LeBron James tossing talcum powder into the air, but it was pretty cute. More than a few bloggers figured it had to be some sort of nerdy, bookworm faux handshake involving a Harvard grad with a former Stanford student-athlete. Actually, there was a lot more significance to it than that.
Landry Fields said that after Jeremy’s first start, they had to come up with something, since everyone was talking about the Harvard/Stanford connection between the two. “So we wanted to go out there and do something that was lighthearted and not too serious,” he said.
The book is not a college textbook, Landry said, but God’s Word. “It’s a Bible because at the end of the day, that’s what we’re playing for. And that’s why we point up toward the sky at the end.”31
The Jeremy Lin Show, meanwhile, played well off Broadway. Jeremy scored 20 points, reaching the 20-point plateau for the fifth game in a row, and his free throw with 4.9 seconds left (after missing the first) gave the Knicks a 99 – 98 lead and capped a furious fourth-quarter 12 – 4 comeback run.
Jeremy and the Knicks team knew they had stolen one in Minnesota. After Jeremy started off hot in the first half with 15 points, the man guarding him, Ricky Rubio, showed why he was the league leader in steals. He forced Jeremy into making multiple turnovers, and Rubio even swatted away one of his layup attempts.
But just like there are no ugly babies, there is no such thing as an ugly win. The Knicks had now captured their fifth in a row without Carmelo Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire, who was still with family in Florida for the funeral of his brother.
From my home in Southern California, I was doing my best to keep up with Linsanity. The Knicks, I noticed, finally got a breather — two glorious days — before their next game in Toronto against the Raptors.
The game wasn’t on any of my 500 channels, so I did the next best thing: I turned to NBA Gametime Live late in the fourth quarter.
“Here’s what’s going on in Toronto,” host Ernie Johnson said, who then showed a clip of Jeremy driving into the maw of the Raptor defense. Jeremy was met in the lane by Raptor Amir Johnson. A collision ensued, and on the continuation, Jeremy double-pumped a feathery four-footer into the hole before tumbling to the floor. Three-point play!
Jeremy’s fearless drive to the rack capped a furious 17-point rally to tie the game. A minute and five seconds were left to play.
Great, I thought. I’m just in time to see a thrilling ending.
“We cannot take you live to that game because of contractual restrictions,” Ernie said, as if he were reading my mind. “But we will keep you up to speed. It’s 87 apiece in Toronto.”
Ernie attempted to make small talk with analysts Greg Anthony and Chris Webber, but Anthony stared off into the distance, no doubt watching the live feed on an off-camera monitor.
Ten or fifteen seconds passed before Ernie interrupted the patter to announce an update from Toronto that they could show. The visual is still imprinted on my brain: Jeremy, yo-yoing the ball above the top of the key, letting the clock run down. The crowd of 20,000 on its feet. A quick feint, and Jeremy pulls up for a beyond-the-arc, high-flying rainbow that sails cleanly through the net to give the Knicks a 90 – 87 lead with. 05 seconds to go.
“Are you kidding me?” E.J. exclaimed. “Are you kidding me? This story gets crazier and crazier every night the Knicks play.”
He had done it again, but what some commentators overlooked was the fact that Coach Mike D’Antoni had not called for a time-out after the Knicks snared an offensive rebound with 10 seconds to play.
Instead, D’Antoni left the ball in Jeremy’s hands. The Raptors were on their heels, having seen a huge lead disappear, and the New York coach rightly recognized that all the momentum was with his guys. Total trust — he left the ball in Jeremy’s hands.
And then Jeremy delivered the dagger to the Raptors’ hearts.
Everybody Got on Board Quickly
Seats on the Jeremy Lin bandwagon were filling up rather quickly. Whoopi Goldberg proudly donned a white home team No. 17 Knicks jersey on the morning talkfest The View. Sarah Palin, during a stop in New York City, purchased a blue Linsanity T-shirt, which she held up for photographers. Donald Trump, when asked about Jeremy on Access Hollywood, pronounced that Jeremy was the real deal and great for New York. Singer Nicki Minaj said she was looking forward to hanging out with the Lin One during the All-Star weekend. (I don’t think that happened.)
The Hoopster-in-Chief said he had been keeping tabs on Jeremy since “way back when.”
“I knew about Jeremy before you did, or everybody else did,” President Barack Obama told sports columnist Bill Simmons. Obama explained that U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who played basketball at Harvard, tipped him off while Jeremy was filling it up for the Crimson during Jeremy’s senior year. “So I’ve been on the Jeremy Lin bandwagon for a while,” said the president.32
San Francisco columnist William Wong took notice of all the love flowing toward Jeremy from both sides of the political aisle. “If he can unite Democrat Obama and right-wing Republicans like Trump and Palin, hey, maybe the kid has otherworldly powers that should be explored,” he wrote.33
It seemed like everyone had something to say about Jeremy. Here is a sampling of some of the best quotes I’ve seen:34
“If you peel back the layers, the guy is an excellent story. He’s got all the requisite skills to do well on the basketball floor. But hard work and perseverance are at the core here in terms of what he’s taken advantage of.
Here’s a guy who labored, being ready at the right time, and he’s capitalized fully on it.”
James Brown, CBS Sports analyst, former basketball player and captain at Harvard University, who is involved in youth ministry and is a longtime supporter of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes
“Jeremy Lin is now living this creative contradiction. Much of the anger that arises when religion mixes with sport or with politics comes from people who want to deny that this contradiction exists and who want to live in a world in which there is only one morality, one set of qualities and where everything is easy, untragic and clean. Life and religion are more complicated than that.”
David Brooks, New York Times columnist
“The thing that comes to mind is the movie Chariots of Fire. So what I see when I see Lin is somebody who embodies that kind of spirit. When he plays basketball, there’s this way that he feels pleasure, feels God’s pleasure. It’s not for any other purpose.”
Christine Folch, New York City resident and Harvard University graduate
“What makes him real is that this guy can play basketball. He loves to compete. He loves the challenge.”
Earvin “Magic” Johnson, Hall of Famer and former point guard for the Los Angeles Lakers
“Of all the drives, dunks, and dazzling shots Jeremy Lin is forcing upon the stars of the NBA, none of it compares with the moves he’s putting on a larger collection of everyday people. Jeremy Lin has dribbled America into the previously quiet corner of its casual prejudice and lazy stereotypes of Asian-Americans.”
Bill Plaschke, sports columnist for the Los Angeles Times
“In a world of infinite data and endless observation, Jeremy Lin has now broadsided us like an unseen torpedo, fired from a submarine we didn’t even know existed.”
Bryan Harvey, sports blogger
“I was kind of salty at him for putting me in my place, but we’re having fun with it. I’m a part of Linsanity.”
Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors guard and former teammate of Jeremy Lin