“It’s pretty neat to see how he’s become sort of a global figure and a global star,’’ said Harvard basketball coach Tommy Amaker. “On a limited basis, he was kind of that here. We went on the road, he had a following.
“He was somewhat of a cult figure here in the Ivy League when we went to play. Obviously, it’s gone to a whole different stratosphere, but we’ve seen glimpses of what everyone’s seeing now, including that.’’
It’s all been a blur. A month ago, Lin was in the Development League, the NBA’s minor league. Just weeks ago, he was sleeping on his brother’s couch in an apartment in Manhattan, his close-to-$800,000 contract wasn’t guaranteed, and he was trying not to think about the very real possibility that he would be cut for the third time since December.
He has played just nine games this season, but his start has been explosive, including scoring 38 points in a win against the Lakers and hitting a game-winning 3-point shot at the buzzer against Toronto. He also set a modern record by scoring the most points for a player making his first four starts in the NBA (109 points).
Yesterday, Lin was added to the roster of players for the Rising Stars Challenge game Feb. 24 during the NBA All-Star Weekend in Orlando.
Lin isn’t the first Asian-American to play in the NBA, but he’s the first to make this kind of impact.
“There have been others, but this is different,’’ Wing said. “We can relate to Jeremy Lin more than we can relate to [former Houston Rockets star] Yao Ming. He was born here, he grew up here, he looks and acts just like one of my cousins.’’
Lin’s ascension has been so rapid that even Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni still is not completely sure what to do with the lightning he has managed to bottle.
“This is pretty new for me, too,’’ D’Antoni said.
When Bill Holden was an assistant coach at Harvard on the hunt for recruits, he acknowledged he did not come across many Asian-American players.
