Jeremy Lin-spiration

Suicide lines: Jeremy Lin-spiration; Granger's step back

By Trey Kerby

Each weekday morning, BDL serves up a handful of NBA-related stories to digest with your biscuits and honey.

Kevin Ding, Orange County Register: Before change comes inspiration. Before inspiration, someone must inspire. Here is Jeremy Lin(notes). Even if in his own mind he's merely just another American kid playing ball, here is Jeremy Lin. He's a somewhat reluctant torch-bearer for race. He has not even begun his NBA career and is trying to pursue his dream his way. His reservations are completely understandable - yet altogether secondary to the greater good. He is already someone to so many, and that's the thing about inspiration: It's not about the one causing the inspiration as much as it's about the effect on many. Quick summary of Lin's recent months: unwanted in the June NBA draft, fortunate to have one offer to take part in NBA summer-league play, absolutely captivating against No. 1 overall pick John Wall(notes) in a televised head-to-head matchup and suddenly in position to turn away teams such as the Lakers to accept an offer from his hometown Golden State Warriors for a partially guaranteed contract that half the guys who were drafted couldn't get. Lin will be in the NBA this season. He is not a pioneer, technically: The NBA is unsure of its exact track record, but Japanese-American Wat Misaka was the league's first non-Caucasian player way back in 1947. Raymond Townsend and Rex Walters followed more recently, their stories begun when born to Asian mothers but hard to read from their bi-racial faces. What people see when they look at Lin's face is clear. Asian publications based in New York, Boston and Washington recently dispatched reporters to San Francisco just because Lin was giving a 5-minute speech to a group of basketball campers. What was said to Lin's face by heckling opposing fans during his four years at Harvard was also clear. For the closed-minded, nothing is more frightening than a true game-changer - and Lin has had to carry that burden. Yes, he went to Harvard; no one offered an athletic scholarship despite Lin being a legit 6-foot-3 and honored as the California prep player of the year. He will be Harvard's first NBA player in nearly 50 years. He posted a 3.1 grade-point average while there and has his degree in economics, thank you very much. There's no doubt that among the inspired now are Lin's fellow academics who can only dream of the cool points of being a professional athlete. But any Ivy League grad torn between risking financial insecurity and pursuit of a less conventional dream should be finding inspiration in Lin, too.

Lin is the NBA's Asian-American inspiration
By KEVIN DING
By KEVIN DING
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
kding@ocregister.com
Story Highlights

Kevin Ding column: The story of Jeremy Lin becoming a rare Asian-American to make the NBA -- his whirlwind summer included spurning the Lakers -- is an inspiration before Lin even plays his first minute with his hometown Golden State Warriors.


Before change comes inspiration.

Before inspiration, someone must inspire.
Article Tab : rookie-golden-achievement
Golden State Warriors rookie Jeremy Lin appeared in Taipei, Taiwan, on July 28 to commemorate his achievement as the first Taiwanese-American to reach the NBA. Click on the link for more photos of Lin.
WALLY SANTANA, AP

Here is Jeremy Lin. Even if in his own mind he's merely just another American kid playing ball, here is Jeremy Lin.

He's a somewhat reluctant torch-bearer for race. He has not even begun his NBA career and is trying to pursue his dream his way. His reservations are completely understandable – yet altogether secondary to the greater good.

He is already someone to so many, and that's the thing about inspiration: It's not about the one causing the inspiration as much as it's about the effect on many.

Quick summary of Lin's recent months: unwanted in the June NBA draft, fortunate to have one offer to take part in NBA summer-league play, absolutely captivating against No. 1 overall pick John Wall in a televised head-to-head matchup and suddenly in position to turn away teams such as the Lakers to accept an offer from his hometown Golden State Warriors for a partially guaranteed contract that half the guys who were drafted couldn't get.

Lin will be in the NBA this season. He is not a pioneer, technically: The NBA is unsure of its exact track record, but Japanese-American Wat Misaka was the league's first non-Caucasian player way back in 1947. Raymond Townsend and Rex Walters followed more recently, their stories begun when born to Asian mothers but hard to read from their bi-racial faces.

What people see when they look at Lin's face is clear. Asian publications based in New York, Boston and Washington recently dispatched reporters to San Francisco just because Lin was giving a 5-minute speech to a group of basketball campers.

What was said to Lin's face by heckling opposing fans during his four years at Harvard was also clear. For the closed-minded, nothing is more frightening than a true game-changer – and Lin has had to carry that burden.

Yes, he went to Harvard; no one offered an athletic scholarship despite Lin being a legit 6-foot-3 and honored as the California prep player of the year. He will be Harvard's first NBA player in nearly 50 years. He posted a 3.1 grade-point average while there and has his degree in economics, thank you very much.

There's no doubt that among the inspired now are Lin's fellow academics who can only dream of the cool points of being a professional athlete. But any Ivy League grad torn between risking financial insecurity and pursuit of a less conventional dream should be finding inspiration in Lin, too.

He has stayed determined to keep playing basketball despite all obstacles. And now he's a study of American society in so many ways, another being religion because Lin has spoken of his interest in the ministry.

Race, religion, education ... these are the pillars of the house in which we all live together. In his own head, Lin feels like another 22-year-old dude playing Halo on his Xbox. In reality, he's everybody's documentary.

Time Magazine featured Lin in December. CNN did an extended interview with him in August. The New York Times just wrote 1,000 words about him.

Lin's parents came from Taiwan to the U.S., and they embraced the freedom – including Jeremy's computer-engineer father, Gie-Ming, ardently supporting his sons in basketball with the all-American spirit of doing what you are good at and love. That's a stark contrast to typical Asian immigrant parents intent on producing valedictorians who become doctors – or if it must be athletics, perhaps tennis players or figure skaters.

This is another way Lin stands to initiate change here far more than someone like Yao Ming, whose people rushed to capitalize on Lin's emergence with a last-minute invitation to Yao's annual charity game in Taiwan. The reality is that Lin has almost nothing in common with Yao, a 7-foot-5 freak who was born into and groomed through China's communist sports system to be what he became: a basketball Ivan Drago.

That would mean Lin is Rocky Balboa or any other classic underdog. He already lived through his own "Hoosiers" movie by shockingly slaying the mighty Mater Dei Monarchs in the 2006 Division II state championship game.

These days, Lin is largely secluded in the Warriors' practice gym, trying to make up for working harder as a pre-teen playing pickup games against grown men than in structured team practices. He knows he still has much to prove.

Is his 5-on-5 court savvy that didn't come through in individual pre-draft workouts truly that unique? Can he really flash off picks and attack the rim with a fearless burst reminiscent of Dwyane Wade? Will he develop his jumper into a consistent 3-point shot?

If so, he earns the Warriors' backup point-guard job this season, that Asian-American face becomes a lasting image in this place where they say amazing happens, and the inspiration grows.

But make no mistake: Something has already changed.

Someone has made it ... and made it change.