Jeremy Lin Remains a New York Story

During his astonishingly rapid rise early this year, Jeremy Lin became the nation’s favorite underdog and a hero to many ethnic Chinese, including some who had never watched basketball. The cheers for Lin were perhaps loudest three miles south of Madison Square Garden in Chinatown, where his newfound fans packed restaurants and bars to watch him turn the also-ran Knicks into prime-time fodder.

Those fans still adore Lin even though the Knicks let him leave in the off-season for the Houston Rockets, who signed him to a lucrative deal. Though many fans begrudgingly still follow the Knicks, their adoration for Lin remains as strong as ever, and they rekindled it on Monday when the Rockets made their only visit of the season to the Garden.

“I call him my other son,” said Michelle Yu, 45, a bookkeeper who joined several dozen fans at Hong Kong Station, a noodle shop in Chinatown, to watch Lin and the Rockets beat the Knicks. “I love him to death; wherever he goes I just root for Jeremy Lin.”

Clad in a gray T-shirt with a Knicks logo that had been modified to read, “Linsanity,” Yu clasped her hands anxiously whenever Lin appeared on television and screamed and clapped whenever he scored. She didn’t watch basketball before Lin burst on the scene, and she follows him on the Internet now that he plays out of town. She tried unsuccessfully to get tickets to the game.

If the Knicks had signed Lin, who by all accounts was eager to remain in New York, they would have won the eternal allegiance of fans like Yu. They also could have marketed tickets, merchandise and sponsorships to Chinese communities not just in New York but across the globe, just as the Rockets did when Yao Ming played in Houston.

Given their early season success, the Knicks might not regret letting Lin go. But they have, intentionally or not, turned their backs on one of the more quintessentially New York experiences: fans’ rooting for their ethnic brethren. Over the years, immigrants and their offspring have backed a veritable United Nations of athletes in New York. The city’s ever-changing mosaic of newcomers has created a sport within a sport nearly unique in America.

A century ago, Irish-Americans turned out for the Giants because of their manager, John McGraw, who not coincidentally spent years searching for a Jewish slugger to draw Jewish fans to the Polo Grounds. Italian fans flocked to the Yankees when Joe DiMaggio joined the team, and remained with them when Yogi Berra, Joe Pepitone and others of Italian descent were added.

Jewish fans kvelled when Sandy Koufax, a Brooklyn native, joined the Dodgers. Far lesser players, from Cal Abrams to Andy Cohen to Art Shamsky, garnered disproportionate attention because of their religion, not their ability to hit home runs. Jackie Robinson helped draw black fans to the Dodgers.

Teams in New York have not been shy about marketing ethnicity. The Mets, for instance, have an array of Heritage Nights, complete with traditional dancing and the first ball thrown out by a leader from an ethnic group’s community.

In many ways, Lin has been different. For those few weeks last season, he transcended not just the Knicks but the city and the sport, turning his unique story into a global narrative. Lin’s road, as the son of immigrants from Taiwan, to the N.B.A. from California schoolboy and then Harvard, was so improbable as to be irresistible.

That flame still flickers with many Chinese fans though Lin now wears a Rockets uniform.

“In a way, he’s a New Yorker anyway,” said Bernie Liew, 60, a restaurant worker who watched the game at Hong Kong Station on Monday. “I never watched the Knicks before Jeremy Lin, but I kept watching because the Knicks were doing well. But I definitely miss Jeremy Lin.”

Some fans have already transferred their allegiance, underscoring the power of personality in sports and, in an age when every game is available on television and the Internet, the porousness of sporting borders.

Take Ren Hsieh. He hails from Houston, and was thrilled when Lin left for his hometown. He wore a red Rockets shirt with an image of Lin on the chest.

“After watching that last year, then having him sign over to the Rockets was great,” Hsieh said at the Nom Wah Tea Parlor, another Chinatown restaurant that was showing the Knicks game.

Liren Teng, 32, Hsieh’s brother, said they watched the Knicks last year because Lin was on the team. This year, they ordered a subscription-only package, NBA League Pass, which offers every team’s games, so they could watch Lin.

“Both of us would’ve liked him to have stayed on the Knicks,” Teng said, “just to have something in New York to cheer for.”

The two brothers sat next to a friend, Leonard Shek, 33, an advertising producer with whom they started a sports podcast, at datwinning.tumblr.com, last season. Shek admitted that the atmosphere at the Nom Wah Tea Parlor on Monday was a far cry from last season, when a large-screen television broadcast Knicks games during a cable blackout, drawing scores of Lin fans to the restaurant. They were happy to see Lin, who scored 22 points and had 8 assists, show his old team and the city that made him famous what they were missing.

“He’s got a little bit of an edge because he’s back in New York,” said Shek, who grew up in the Bay Area and played in the same Asian sports leagues as Lin. “It’s nice to see him get a little bit of revenge.”
 

via Lin Remains a New York Story – NYTimes.com.