An Asian American sports star is born

Parveen Chopra, New York: Till a fortnight ago, you’d have never heard of Jeremy Lin. Today he is Linsanity sweeping the nation, with an admirer in the occupant of White House, himself a basketball player. And people a world away, in China and Taiwan, waking up early to catch his games.

The 23-year-old Harvard graduate and Knicks’ point guard is the first US-born player of Taiwanese and Chinese heritage to dazzle the NBA. He averaged 23.3 points and 7.4 assists in leading the Knicks to six triumphs in a row, five of them when New York was without top stars Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony. The peak of Lin-mania perhaps came Tuesday night in Toronto, when he drained a dramatic game-winning 3-pointer (shooting a basket from over 20 feet) in the last seconds of the game to stun the Raptors. On Wednesday, in Knicks seventh straight victory he had only 10 points on six shots, but gave a career-high 13 assists.

Here is, staccato style, catching up with the dizzying rise and exploding craze over Lin.

* Lin is on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine’s Feb 20 issue. Terry McDonell, editor of the Sports Illustrated Group said, “Jeremy Lin has done more in these past five games to captivate a fan base than any player in NBA history – and not just with his historic statistics,” he said. “Look at what’s going on in this city.”

* Jeremy Lin will play in NBA’s Rising Stars Challenge. He was added Thursday to the roster of players for the Feb. 24 game at All-Star Weekend in Orlando. He has also been invited to play a role in the Sprite Slam Dunk Contest.

* Mike Bair, president of MSG (Madison Square Garden ) Media, has seen Knicks viewership jump 70 percent since Lin’s impact began with a 550 percent increase in website hits. Ticket resale prices at Madison Square Garden have skyrocketed due to Lin. It does not help that a spat between Time Warner cable and Knicks telecasters MSG has kept Knicks games off TV screens in much of New York.

* Madison Square Garden Inc., the company that owns the Knicks, the Garden in Manhattan and the namesake sports network, has seen its stock surge 9 percent since Lin began his heroics Feb. 4.

* The Knicks have scrambled to start selling replicas of Lin’s No. 17 jerseys and T-shirts, Sporting goods stores are having trouble keeping Lin’s No. 17 jerseys in stock.

* Some of the puns that have sprung around Lin-sanity (pleasing tabloid headline writers), giving many a lesson in Lin-guistics: Linspiring, Lincredible, Lin your face. One girl among the spectators held a placard: Jeremy, Be my VaLintine.
If you want to catch the Lin magic, on Friday Knicks are likely to defeat the lowly New Orleans Hornets at home. On Sunday they play Dallas.