Jeremy Lin in Photos: NBA Player Rises to Stardom
The entertainment world is delighted with the rise of new sports star Jeremy Lin.
Lin is the first American player of Chinese or Taiwanese descent to play in the NBA. He is now making a major impact in the league. Sports Illustrated refers to him as "the biggest overnight sensation the game has ever seen."
The 23-year-old New York Knick was sitting on the bench two weeks ago, but everything changed once he became a starter. In his first three games as starter, he scored more points than any other player in the history of the NBA within the same first three games and led his team to its seventh straight win last night.
"Call it a novelty, call it a gimmick, call it a fad, call it whatever you want. Whatever it is, it's not going away anytime soon, and thank goodness it's not, because it's a heck of a lot of fun to watch," Fox Sports' columnist Sam Gardner wrote today.
Media coverage of the sports superstar extends from sports to entertainment in the United States and around the world.
On China's Baidu, the mainland's largest search engine, he was the most searched person. He already had a quarter million followers on Weibo, a microblog site similar to Twitter.
Demand to see Lin in the U.S. is also on the rise. The number of people watching Knicks games from home has nearly doubled. Last week 227,360 households turned in to the MSG Network, up from 114,019, reports Nielsen. Ratings are up more than 130 percent compared with the same point last season.
Resale ticket prices for Knicks' games have soared dramatically, according to the New York Post, at times as much as 108 percent.
Online, videos of Lin's best plays have gone viral. A YouTube video of Lin's 3-point game winner shot against the Toronto Raptors on February 14 has nearly 2.5 million views. Another featuring Lin's moves against the L.A. Lakers on February 10 has over 1 million views on the site. A YouTube video of Lin dancing the "Dougie" has nearly 500,000 hits.
Demand for Lin jerseys is also on the rise and restaurants near the Knicks' arena, Madison Square Garden, have also reported an increase in business, reports the Post.
Lin is also an outspoken Christian and a philanthropist. He founded the Jeremy Lin Foundation (JLINF) which provides financial, educational and spiritual assistance to underprivileged individuals and communities.
