Rare footage of pre-Linsanity Jeremy Lin
Jeremy Lin frenzy has swept not just basketball fans but the whole world. He is such a captivating story because he touches so many demographics: Asian-Americans, New Yorkers, Christians, basketball fans, Asia as a whole, anybody who enjoys rooting for a good underdog, anybody who has ever felt underappreciated or undervalued.
I have been following Jeremy Lin since the record-breaking 2009-2010 Harvard season — my brother is a student at Harvard University and as a Taiwanese-American myself, I read many Taiwanese blogs that jumped on Jeremy early — but I in my wildest expectations did not see this level of a breakout performance coming.
Writers have been scrambling to discover new unique angles to cover Jeremy Lin, so by now he has been dissected fairly thoroughly and videos from his past are all over the place.
I recently came across a couple interesting videos that nobody in the Western media has seen yet. Even before the Jeremy craze, I regularly browse through Youtube Taiwan to stay on top of news and funny videos from Taiwan. A Taiwanese celebrity was visiting New York a few weeks ago for vacation and happened to sit courtside at Jeremy Lin’s very first game at Madison Square Garden on January 31st. In that game, he was still an unknown player and only played garbage time, the last few minutes when the score is so lopsided that the game is essentially over and all the star players have already sat down.
Jeremy Lin’s first game at Madison Square Garden, before the Linsanity
This first video shows courtside footage of Jeremy’s first game at MSG, filmed by the celebrity. In 5 minutes, he scores 4 points and has 4 assists. What’s also interesting is the celebrity’s discussion with his wife. Chen Chien-chou (陳建州) is a former professional basketball player in Taiwan and shows a lot of insight talking about Jeremy’s game, how he would fit in well with Coach D’Antoni’s system, and how he just needs one good chance to prove himself.
Talking to Jeremy Lin post-game in lounge
Second video shows the celebrity visiting Jeremy Lin after the game in the New York Knicks players’ family lounge. He also chats to Tyson Chandler and Carmelo Anthony briefly to ask what they think about Jeremy. Jeremy’s parents are also here.
One last video for the road: a couple of Taiwan news reporters demonstrate the Jeremy Lin / Landry Fields handshake. I crack up every time I watch this.
