The first time I heard about Jeremy Lin

With the Golden State Warriors signing Harvard grad and Bay Area product Jeremy Lin, the Internet has been buzzing with news and blog postings about Jeremy. The news outlets have been going with the "hometown boy does good" story line. There has been many blog postings (including your truly) talking what Jeremy means to the Asian American, Harvard and Palo Alto communities.

However, with all of the focus on Jeremy these days, I feel I should take a step back and talk about when I first heard of Jeremy Lin.

The first time I was aware of Jeremy Lin was sometime during the 2005-2006 high school basketball season (Jeremy's senior year). I can't pinpoint an exact date. However, as a huge basketball fan, I follow a lot of basketball at all levels including youth, high school, college and NBA.

My main recollection is that the San Francisco Chronicle / SFGate mentioning Jeremy Lin and his Palo Alto team being a favorite to get to the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) State Championship game in Division II. Up to this point, I had not heard of Jeremy Lin or his Palo Alto team. After all, living in San Francisco, I'm usually more focused on how the San Francisco public and private high schools do at the state tournaments than other teams in the Bay Area.

However, I was intrigued about who this Jeremy Lin kid was. As someone who lives here in the Bay Area, it's not unusual to see a ton of Asian kids play basketball at the youth and high school levels. There are some solid players too but they play in obscurity because their teams aren't that good. Not that many of them are Division I or pro material but there's some talent and skill there, even if they aren't the biggest or tallest players around.

However, it was a rare thing to see an Asian kid be the primary focal point of a team that had STATE CHAMPIONSHIP aspirations. From then on, I followed Jeremy and his Palo Alto team through their league playoffs, Central Coast Section (CCS) playoffs, the Northern California playoffs and finally the televised State Championship game between Palo Alto and Mater Dei.

Having never seen Jeremy play before, watching him play on TV for the first time was interesting. He didn't look physically intimidating and I thought his jumper looked a little awkward. However, just as those in the Ivy League and the NBA Summer League found out, Jeremy could play and Palo Alto knocked off mighty Mater Dei to claim the CIF Division II State Championship.

From there, I was curious about Jeremy's future plans. For many of the Asian basketball players I had seen in the past, they might go to play at junior college or small college to continue playing competitively. Many of the same players also played in the various Asian adult leagues and tournaments that are prevalent around the Bay Area and California.

In doing my research, I saw notes that Jeremy wasn't heavily recruited though he might walk on to the local Pac-10 schools. It wasn't until later that I found out that Jeremy was going to Harvard.

The rest, as you might say, is history. I heavily followed Jeremy Lin's career at Harvard through the Internet. Many people don't know that during Jeremy's sophomore year at Harvard, the Harvard team came to play in a tournament at Stanford. Unfortunately, Stanford blew out Harvard and Jeremy didn't score though he did bounce back with better games in the next two games in the tournament. I'm sure Jeremy would have loved to do well in front of the home crowd.

All in all, outside of Jeremy's family, friends, coaches and others from Palo Alto and Harvard, I believe I am may be one of Jeremy Lin's earliest fans (in fact someone pointed out to me they were following him before me....COOL!) . I didn't know if he could make it to the NBA but I was glad to see he had a great career at Harvard.

The fact that the Golden State Warriors have signed Jeremy is an added bonus. Good luck to Jeremy as the 2010-2011 NBA season slowly approaches. Many fans are eagerly awaiting this!

COUPLE OF SIDE NOTES:

1.

An interesting story line that doesn't get mentioned anymore is that Palo Alto was also a favorite to represent Northern California in the state championship during Jeremy's junior season. However, Jeremy decide to play pick up ball a few days before the CIF Northern California championship game and injured himself. Palo Alto would go on to lose in the Northern California championship game. I believe Jeremy himself mentioned this incident motivated him to work hard to get his team back to the State Championship his senior year.

2.

There was an article today in a local newspaper that was discussing how many people in his circle of friends and coaches that believed that Jeremy could make the NBA. Among the people who was interviewed was one Thomas Fang.

Not everyone surprised by Lin in the NBA

Fang was a 6'5" forward who played for Archbishop Mitty High School in San Jose and later walked on to the Cal basketball team. Jeremy's Palo Alto team defeated Fang's Mitty team in the Northern California championship game prior to playing Mater Dei.

When Palo Alto and Mitty played for the Northern California championship in 2006, I thought it was great that TWO ASIAN-AMERICAN kids played an integral part in each of their team's success. Jeremy was obviously the star of Palo Alto. Mitty's star was 6'9" Drew Gordon who would later go to UCLA and now New Mexico. However, Fang was a starter and an all league player in his own right.

Though Fang didn't play much at Cal, he plays in intramurals and other leagues around the area.

Jeremy Lin is coming home to the Bay....as a Golden State Warrior

I play in a summer adult basketball league and my team was beaten tonight 47-30. Afterwards, a few teammates and I headed off to dinner and the discussion wandered off to the Golden State Warriors and Jeremy Lin. Some of my teammates and I had just purchased Warriors season tickets for the upcoming season and we were discussing how to divide the tickets up.

Along the way, we were also discussing where Jeremy Lin would end up (Dallas Mavericks or Los Angeles Lakers). Since I hadn't checked the news in a few hours, I went online via my Blackberry and was stunned to see the news that Jeremy Lin might sign with his hometown GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS!

Various news outlets have confirmed a deal is in the works and could be signed by tomorrow.

It's a good move overall for the Warriors for a couple of reasons:

1. It's a great marketing move. Jeremy Lin is a hometown kid from Palo Alto and sure to draw friends and family to Warriors games. In addition, being Asian-American, Lin is sure to attract many Asian-Americans basketball fans as well.
2. It's a good economic move for the Warriors. Lin was an un-drafted free agent and thus wouldn't command a huge salary. It's a low cost move with the potential for a high reward if Lin shows he can play in the NBA at a solid level.

The signing of Lin is tempered by the fact that the Warriors first round draft pick is out with an injury. In addition, David Lee, whom the Warriors acquired from the Knicks hurt his finger during practice with the USA basketball team.

However, I am personally excited by the prospect of Lin playing on the Warriors. It's the most excited I've been about the Warriors in years.

Jeremy Lin and the Model Minority Myth

There are many stereotypes that Asian-Americans try and fight on a daily basis. One of the major ones is the stereotype that Asian-Americans are a "model minority":

To quote from the wikipedia entry on Asian-Americans and the model minority myth:

"Asians are seen as hardworking, politically inactive, studious, intelligent, productive, and inoffensive people who have elevated their social standing through merit and diligence. This label is given in contrast to other racial stereotypes which routinely accuse minorities of socially unwelcome traits: such as laziness or criminal tendencies."

Personally, I find this very funny as I was never a great student in high school (graduating with a 2.50 GPA or somewhere along those lines). I attended my local State university and graduated with a double degree. All in all, I'm pretty much the anti-Asian Model Minority.

However, along with this model minority myth comes other stereotypes. Asian-Americans become these model minorities through hard work sometimes at the expense of other things. Stories are told of Asian-American parents telling their kids not to date or play sports so they can study to get into the Stanford's and Harvard's of the world. Thus starts the stereotype of the geeky, smart and non-athletic Asian-American kid who can get into college with an academic scholarship but not an athletic scholarship.

However, if you are Asian-American and live in the community on a daily basis, you will know that the model minority stereotype (as with all other stereotypes) are not true. There are smart and academically minded kids. Then there are kids who are more athletically gifted, though not many of them get into the public eye.

However, there are minimal amount of Asian-American athletes in the professional sports world and thus the stereotype of the non-athletic Asian-American still abounds. Therefore when foreign born Asian athletes such as Yao Ming, Ichiro and others made a splash, many Asian-Americans were happy to embrace them even if they didn't share their American born experiences. These were guys who were different and showed a different side of Asians that many people hadn't seen before.

When Jeremy Lin had some breakout basketball performances during his junior year at Harvard, some Asian Americans (including me) began to track him to see if he could make it to the NBA and finally shatter the stereotype of the non-athletic Asian-American.

Despite a good senior year, Jeremy Lin wasn't drafted. Many NBA executives didn't think he was athletic enough to compete in the NBA. However, Jeremy got an opportunity to play in the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas with the Dallas Maverics. While his stats weren't great, he showed poise, leadership and skill against much higher level of talent than he faced during his four years of college ball at Harvard. Thanks to his performances, there are many NBA teams that have shown interest including the defending NBA champions, the Los Angeles Lakers.

The ironic thing with Jeremy Lin? Yes, he's shown he can play basketball with just about anyone. But he did it the "Asian way". He had a 4.2 GPA in high school and played four years of basketball at Harvard and graduated with his degree! Harvard is more known for it's academics than athletics. Compare Jeremy Lin to the many college kids who leave school early to try to play basketball professionally.

Jeremy Lin has shown that it's possible to be both a good student and an NBA caliber basketball player. I am sure Jeremy Lin spent many hours in the classroom studying but also on the basketball court working on his game. These are all things that Jeremy Lin should be commended for.

Asian-Americans have spent many years trying fight the stereotype of the model minority. With Jeremy Lin leading the way, perhaps Asian-Americans need not try to fight the stereotype and instead channel it into other things besides academics. I hope that Jeremy's exploits will convince Asian-American parents to allow their kids to pursue their passions instead of settling for the traditional money making occupations such as being a lawyer, accountant or doctor. Jeremy Lin has shown a smart kid can play basketball. Why can't Asian Americans become singers, actors or other things?

No matter what happens to Jeremy Lin in the near future, he has already left a good example for future generations of Asian-Americans to follow. We just have to be bold to take those steps to pursue our life's passion rather than settling.

The spectacle that was LeBron James

Most of my friends know I am a basketball fan. However, most don't realize how much of a fan I really am. I play basketball regularly, I officiated semi-regularly, and I used to coach youth basketball. In addition, I follow high school, college and NBA basketball in person and on TV.

However, one thing I don't like about basketball (and sports in general) is there is a lot of drama OUTSIDE of the games themselves. In high school, there are star players who can't keep up their grades to play and hurt their schools. Or there are the kids who constantly transfer to schools with better reputations to try to land college scholarships. In college, there are star players who come in for a year or two and then leave for the NBA (whether they are ready or not is another story).

In the NBA, like most professional sports, drama is built in. There are stories of guys sleeping with multiple women and having tons of kids. There are hold outs for more money. The list can go on. Tonight, we can add LeBron James's free agency to the list of wild spectacles.

By all accounts, LeBron is not only a great player but a good person as well. However, after his Cleveland Cavaliers suffered a stunning loss in the players to the Boston Celtics, speculation began on whether LeBron would leave Cleveland.

The speculation ended tonight as LeBron announced his intention to sign with the Miami Heat on a one hour special on ESPN tonight. LeBron joins his friends Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh, who announced earlier in the week that they intended to sign with Miami as well.

I haven't necessary lost respect for LeBron as he did what he felt was the best move for his career. However, I do think this situation could have been handled better. The constant news reports on LeBron's impending decision was overkill. I also thought that having a one hour long show dedicated to LeBron's decision was not the best. I don't remember any other free agent in the time that I've watched the NBA garner as much attention as LeBron did.

All in all, what LeBron did was fine though I think that Miami signing three star players in LeBron, Wade and Bosh sets a bad precedent. In years past, most NBA teams built around one or two star players. This year, that path has been shattered. If you can't win, you try to get as many star players as you can.

It remains to be seen how Miami will look as they only have a few players under contract. Three good players will help but they will need a solid bench.