11 July 2012

Jeremy Lin

Jeremy Shu-How Lin[1] (born August 23, 1988) is an American professional basketball player who has most recently played with the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). After receiving no athletic scholarship offers out of high school and being undrafted out of college, the 2010 Harvard University graduate reached a partially guaranteed contract deal later that year with his hometown Golden State Warriors.
Lin seldom played in his rookie season and was assigned to the NBA Development League (D-League) three times. He was waived by the Warriors and the Houston Rockets the following preseason before joining the Knicks early in the 2011–12 season. He was again assigned to the D-League and continued to play sparingly. In February 2012, he unexpectedly led a winning streak by New York while being promoted to the starting lineup, which generated a global following known as Linsanity. Lin is one of the few Asian Americans in NBA history, and the first American of Chinese or Taiwanese descent to play in the league.[2] He is known for his public expression of the Christian faith.[3]



Early life

Lin was born in Los Angeles, and raised in a Christian family in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Palo Alto.[4][5][note 1] His parents, Lin Gie-Ming and Shirley Lin, emigrated from Taiwan to the United States in the mid-1970s, first settling in Virginia, and later residing in Indiana, where they both attended universities.[8][9][10] They are dual nationals of both Taiwan and the U.S.[11] Lin's paternal family comes from Beidou, Changhua, in Taiwan (his father's distant ancestors immigrated to Taiwan from Zhangpu County, Fujian, in mainland China, in 1707),[11][12][13] while his maternal grandmother immigrated to Southern Taiwan in the late 1940s from Pinghu, Zhejiang in mainland China.[11][14][15]
Lin's parents are both 5 feet 6 inches (1.68 m) tall.[16] His maternal grandmother's family was tall, and her father was over 6 feet (1.8 m).[15] Lin has an older brother, Josh, and a younger brother, Joseph.[10] Gie-Ming taught his sons to play basketball at the local YMCA.[17] Shirley helped form a National Junior Basketball program in Palo Alto where Lin played. She worked with coaches to ensure his playing did not affect academics. She was criticized by her friends for letting Lin play so much basketball, but she allowed him to play the game he enjoyed.[18]

High school career

In his senior year in 2005–2006, Lin captained Palo Alto High School to a 32–1 record and upset nationally ranked Mater Dei, 51–47, for the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Division II state title.[19][20] He was named first-team All-State and Northern California Division II Player of the Year, ending his senior year averaging 15.1 points, 7.1 assists, 6.2 rebounds and 5.0 steals.[19]

College career

Recruiting process

Lin sent his résumé and a DVD of highlights of his high school basketball career to all the Ivy League schools, University of California, Berkeley, and his dream schools Stanford and University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).[21][22][9] The Pac-10 schools wanted him to walk-on, rather than be actively recruited or offered a sports scholarship. Harvard and Brown were the only teams that guaranteed him a spot on their basketball teams, but Ivy League schools do not offer athletic scholarships.[23] Rex Walters, University of San Francisco men's basketball coach and a retired NBA player, said NCAA limits on coaches' recruiting visits had an impact on Lin's chances. "Most colleges start recruiting a guy in the first five minutes they see him because he runs really fast, jumps really high, does the quick, easy thing to evaluate," Walters said. Lin added, "I just think in order for someone to understand my game, they have to watch me more than once, because I’m not going to do anything that’s extra flashy or freakishly athletic."[24]
In July 2005, then-Harvard assistant coach Bill Holden saw that Lin was 6 feet 3 inches (1.91 m), which fit the physical attributes he was seeking, and he had a 4.2 grade point average in high school, which fit Harvard's academic standards. However, Holden was not initially impressed with Lin's on-court abilities, and told Lin's high school basketball coach, Peter Diepenbrock, that Lin was a "Division III player". Later that week, Holden saw Lin playing in a much more competitive game, driving to the basket at every opportunity with the "instincts of a killer". Lin became a top-priority for Holden.[25] Harvard coaches feared that Stanford, close to Lin's home,[note 2] would offer Lin a scholarship, but it did not, and Lin chose to attend Harvard.[26] "I wasn't sitting there saying all these Division I coaches were knuckleheads," Diepenbrock said. "There were legitimate questions about Jeremy."[27] Joe Lacob, incoming Warriors' owner and Stanford booster, said Stanford's failure to recruit Lin "was really stupid. The kid was right across the street. [If] you can't recognize that, you've got a problem."[28] Kerry Keating, the UCLA assistant who offered Lin the opportunity to walk-on, said in hindsight that Lin would probably have ended up starting at point guard for UCLA.[29]

Harvard

Lin wearing a crimson colored Harvard basketball jersey
After failing to receive any athletic scholarship offers, Lin attended Harvard.
A Harvard coach remembered Lin in his freshman season as "the [physically] weakest guy on the team",[30] but in his sophomore season (2007–08), Lin averaged 12.6 points and was named All-Ivy League Second Team.[19] By his junior year during the 2008–09 season, he was the only NCAA Division I men's basketball player who ranked in the top ten in his conference for scoring (17.8), rebounding (5.5), assists (4.3), steals (2.4), blocked shots (0.6), field goal percentage (0.502), free throw percentage (0.744), and three-point shot percentage (0.400),[17] and was a consensus selection for All-Ivy League First Team. He had 27 points, 8 assists, and 6 rebounds in an 82–70 win over 17th-ranked Boston College, three days after the Eagles defeated No. 1 North Carolina.[19][31]
In his senior year (2009–10), Lin averaged 16.4 points, 4.4 rebounds, 4.5 assists, 2.4 steals and 1.1 blocks, and was again a unanimous selection for All-Ivy League First Team. He was one of 30 midseason candidates for the John R. Wooden Award[32] and one of 11 finalists for the Bob Cousy Award.[33] He was also invited to the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament.[34] Fran Fraschilla of ESPN picked Lin among the 12 most versatile players in college basketball.[31] He gained national attention for his performance against the 12th ranked Connecticut Huskies, against whom he scored a career-high tying 30 points and grabbed nine rebounds on the road.[35] After the game, Hall of Fame Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun said of Lin: "I've seen a lot of teams come through here, and he could play for any of them. He's got great, great composure on the court. He knows how to play."[17]
For the season, Harvard set numerous program records including wins (21), non-conference wins (11), home wins (11) and road/neutral wins (10).[36] Lin finished his career as the first player in the history of the Ivy League to record at least 1,450 points (1,483), 450 rebounds (487), 400 assists (406) and 200 steals (225).[19] He graduated from Harvard in 2010 with a degree in economics and a 3.1 grade-point average.[37]
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