He is the man of the hour. Jeremy Lin with no shortage of nicknames (The Lin-anator, Super Lin-tendo, Lin-credible, Lin-derella man, Linfluenza, and Lin-sanity) has become a sports icon.
Going from a D- League player to getting cut by two NBA teams to now becoming a sports superstar that has taken the USA (and part of Canada) by storm. Two weeks ago Jeremy Lin was still sleeping on his brother's couch because he didn't know how long he'd be with the New York Knicks.
Jeremy Lin was born in Palo Alto, California and later went and played his college ball at the Harvard University. He graduated with an degree in economics and is now a starting point guard in the NBA. You don't have to have a degree in economics to know that pays the big bucks. Well actually Lin is making a very modest salary right now of only $762,195 this year. If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on that going up after this season.
So why is Lin getting so much attention. Is it because he outplayed Kobe "The Black Mamba" Bryant? He schooled Ricky Rubio? Maybe it was because he went beast mode and clutched the game winning shot against the Toronto Raptors? If you ask Floyd Mayweather why he's getting so much attention he'll tell you its because he's asian. He tweeted this a couple of nights ago.
"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"
Yeah that may be part of it Floyd, but did you know that Jeremy Lin is the only player since the NBA-ABA merger to score the most points in his first 5 starts? It could also be the Cinderella/Under dog story that everyone loves to hear about. A kid coming out of high school with no scholarship offers, walks onto his college team, goes undrafted in the NBA and now is starting and dominating. It's Lin-credible!
So why is Lin getting so much attention? Well it's because of the media! It seems like recently the media wants a "media darling" so that they can write stories about. Do any of you remember Jimmer-mania? Now the only time that we here about Jimmer is when he's not playing. How about more recently (even though Jimmer-mania was only like a year ago) Tebow-mania? Because of Tebow-mania we now have this wonderful song by DJ Steve Porter.
How will Lin turn out? That is a good question. If we look at the past "media darlings" recently they haven't been that great. Jimmer has had a horrific rookie year with glimpses of his former greatness. Tebow's quarterback numbers were probably worse than some offensive linemen's if they tried it. He completed less than 50% of his passes for the year and going 12 TD's to 6 INT's. That's bad.....
There is a reason that so many overnight sensations are just that, overnight sensations. It's because they can't sustain it for a long time to become one of the greats (Elway, Young, Montana, Jordan, Bryant, Etc.). Now Lin has played lights out the last 7 games leading the Knicks back up to a .500 record, but we'll see if he can keep the flow up once Carmelo Anthony returns back to the starting line up with him. Only time will tell.
Oh yeah, Lin likes to just be called Jeremy.
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