Golden State's Jeremy Lin scores one for the Ivys

By Jeff Chiu, AP











Golden State's
Jeremy Lin scores
one for the Ivys

Updated 1d 19h ago

By J. Michael Falgoust, USA TODAY

LOS ANGELES — In his second game, Golden State
Warriors guard Jeremy Lin made his arrival to the
NBA official.

The undrafted free agent from Harvard got his first
significant playing time and scored his first points
in a 107-83 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers on
Sunday.

The 22-year-old tried his best to downplay his
impact. Lin played three minutes in a win against the
Los Angeles Clippers last week but didn't take any
shots or make any assists.

"I'm not going to really talk about what I did
personally when we lost by 24," Lin says of the
Lakers game. "I'm just learning slowly the NBA game.
…

"There's not one specific thing that I might have
learned in between one game and the next, but just
this experience to be able to get out on the floor
and stay comfortable" was helpful.
The 6-3 guard only scored two points, missing four
of five shots, but Lin also had four steals and five
assists in 16 minutes.

He scrambled on the floor in the third quarter to
wrestle the ball from Lakers power forward Lamar
Odom, then fed Brandan Wright for a dunk while in a
sitting position. The Warriors still trailed 68-51.

Less than 30 seconds later, Lin converted a fast-
break layup and received some applause at Staples
Center, the Lakers' home court.

"We got a chance to get some good information on
Jeremy Lin. He came in and did a good job, gave us
a good tempo," Warriors coach Keith Smart says.

Lin's desire impressed one of his favorite players,
Lakers point guard Derek Fisher.

"He plays with good energy on the floor. He's
aggressive. He plays hard. He's not afraid of the
competition," Fisher says. "Those are good things to
have when you're a young player regardless of
where you're from. You have to be willing to go out
there and compete against the best."

Being an underdog for his entire career, Fisher
understands Lin's mind-set. At 6-1, Fisher is
undersized and came to the NBA from a small school
in Arkansas-Little Rock.

Lin, the third Asian American player in the NBA, is
the first Ivy Leaguer to get playing time in the league
since the 2002-03 season.

"He's carrying the hopes of an entire continent. I
Advertisement
By Jeff Chiu, AP

Warriors guard Jeremy Lin has received attention from his coach and opposing players for his hustle.

only had to carry the hopes of Little Rock, Arkansas.
He's accomplished a lot more than I have already,"
says Fisher, who has won five NBA championships
with the Lakers.

"He just has to keep working hard and remain

Warriors' Jeremy Lin beat all kinds of odds in reaching the NBA

Jeremy Lin is an undrafted rookie with the Golden State Warriors. (Kyle Terada / US Presswire)















latimes.com/sports/basketball/nba/la-sp-warriors-jeremy-lin-20101031,0,7519421.story

latimes.com
Warriors' Jeremy Lin beat all kinds of odds in reaching the NBA
The undrafted rookie is only the third Asian American, and the fourth player from Harvard, to make an NBA roster. And it's looking like he'll stick for a while.
By Baxter Holmes

7:36 PM PDT, October 30, 2010

Advertisement

The odds of making an NBA roster are slim.

They're near impossible if you're Asian American (only two have done it), if you attend Harvard (only three), or if your name isn't one of the 60 called during the NBA draft.

And if, by chance, you happened to be blessed/cursed with sharing all three of these traits, the odds then would be, well . . .

"Very, very, very small," said Jeremy Lin, an undrafted Asian American Harvard alum rookie guard for the Golden State Warriors, No. 7 in Sunday's Staples Center program.

Lin, 22, took a statistics class in high school, and again in college — he majored in economics — so he knows Halley's Comet comes around more often (visible from Earth about every 75 years) than someone like him.

"It's definitely unbelievable," Lin said.

After leading his Palo Alto High team to a 2006 state title against powerhouse Santa Ana Mater Dei, Lin failed to get any Division I scholarship offers, despite being named state player of the year in several publications.

Some Pacific 10 Conference schools courted him as a walk-on, but the strongest pitches came from Harvard and Brown. Lin picked Harvard, which has produced eight U.S. presidents and 41 Nobel laureates but just three NBA players, the last nearly 60 years ago.

Had Lin simpler aspirations, the odds of finding gainful employment would have stacked nicely in his favor. The name "Harvard," after all, bumps resumes to the top of most application stacks.

But Lin was determined: Basketball or bust, never mind Harvard's pathetic NBA track record, or that Lin, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, was trying to become just the third player of full Asian descent to earn an NBA paycheck.

"I didn't have any backup plan. I didn't apply for any jobs," Lin said. "I was going to try for the NBA."

Lin recognizes how a few key things fell into place late for him to make it.

After four years at Harvard in which he became the first player in Ivy League history with 1,450 points, 450 rebounds, 400 assists and 200 steals, eight NBA teams invited him to pre-draft workouts. But none drafted him.

Then, Lin received one invite to play on a summer league team: the Dallas Mavericks, a team that would play against the Washington Wizards with No. 1 overall pick John Wall. And on the night the Mavericks and Wizards squared off, another Mavericks guard happened to be injured, so Lin received more playing time than usual.

And soon, the focus turned from Wall to the 6-foot-3 Lin, who kept one-upping the Kentucky star in one-on-one matchups. With the crowd on his side, Lin finished with 13 points, and a few days later, teams, including the Lakers, started calling.

Eventually, Lin, a Palo Alto native, chose his hometown Warriors, where in limited minutes he'll play the combo guard position after playing point in college.

In July, he signed a two-year deal with the Warriors — the first year partially guaranteed, and the second with a team option that Warriors General Manager Larry Riley has said is likely to be picked up.

However, Lin is now on a team with talented guards Monta Ellis and Stephen Curry, so he's near the bottom of the Warriors' depth chart.

Warriors Coach Keith Smart said Lin is "a driver, not a shooter," but that he can defend, rebound and is a quick learner, though he now needs to learn that "you have other good players on the team, it's not just you anymore."

Lin, a devout Christian, one day hopes to become a minister, regardless of where professional basketball takes him.

But that he ever made it to the NBA at all, considering the odds, is, well . . .

"A miracle from God," he said.