Jeremy Lin crosses over John Wall, dunks on Wizards

New York Knicks (and former Rockets) point guard Jeremy Lin crosses over the Washington Wizards John Wall and goes in uncontested for the slam dunk in action on 2/8/2012.

I must admit, I have never seen Jeremy Lin play until today. I heard of him in some news item, but never really thought of it. Further research came up with this in Wikipedia.

Jeremy Shu-How Lin[1] (Chinese: 林書豪; pinyin: Lín Shūháo; born August 23, 1988) is an American professional basketball player with the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). After receiving no athletic scholarship offers out of high school and being undrafted out of college, the Harvard University graduate reached a partially guaranteed contract deal with his hometown Golden State Warriors. Lin is the first American player in the NBA to be of Chinese or of Taiwanese descent.

Here's more details on Jeremy Lin's NBA career in Wikipedia.

He pretty much went undrafted for most of his college years. Some of the reasons I read was because of his race. If he was white or black, he would have been drafted in college.

Here's what an entry in Wikipedia says, "Sean Gregory of Time wrote of Lin's zero Division I scholarship offers: "[Lin] was scrawny, but don't doubt that a little racial profiling, intentional or otherwise, contributed to his underrecruitment." Lin said: "I'm not saying top-5 state automatically gets you offers, but I do think (my ethnicity) did affect the way coaches recruited me. I think if I were a different race, I would've been treated differently."

The first time Lin went to a Pro-Am game at Kezar Pavilion in Golden Gate Park, his coach said, someone there informed him: "Sorry, sir, there's no volleyball here tonight. It's basketball."

It is nice to see stereotypes being broken in major sports. But that's not what really piqued by interest in Jeremy Lin.

He graduated from Harvard with a degree in economics and a 3.1 grade-point average. Now that...is impressive.

When will see see a Filipino player in the NBA (not Erik Spoelstra)? There were some before according to Answers.com

Raymond Townsend, whose mother hails from the Batangas province in the Philippines, played for the Golden State Warriors.

Ricardo Brown was drafted by the Houston Rockets back in the 80's as well. He ended his colorful pro basketball career back in the Philippines Basketball Association (PBA) donning the San Miguel Beermen jersey and was included in the league's Hall of Fame.

Back in the 90's, Johnny Abarrientos of the PBA's Alaska Aces was scouted by the Charlotte Hornets and was considered to be drafted. But it was his prime in the PBA back then that he did not accept the offer since the NBA could not assure him of a long-term career in the premier American league.

Here's another highlight of Jeremy Lin against the Washington Wizards where here recorded his first double double with 23 pts and 10 assist.