Nope, that's not Jeremy Lin -- that's Thanh, who celebrates a birthday today. Happy Birthday to him.
Last night, Jeremy Lin, probably the top Asian-American basketball player in college basketball today, returned to the Bay Area, representing his current school Harvard as they played Santa Clara.
Lin is a cult hero for a lot of Asian people -- this guy can dunk. CBS-5 was there and covered this game and also below the video is a nice write-up from the Chronicle on Jeremy.
Playing hard and smart goes a long way for Lin
By Steve Kroner, San Francisco Chronicle
How does a 6-foot-3 guard put together a line of 17 points, eight rebounds, seven steals and five assists, the stat-sheet-stuffing performance Jeremy Lin had in Harvard's 66-53 win over George Washington on Wednesday?
"I just try to play as hard as I can every possession," Lin said in a phone interview Thursday. "If you're aware and you're high-energy, the ball will eventually bounce your way and you'll be able to make plays."
Santa Clara has the tough task of trying to limit Lin's playmaking when the Broncos host the Crimson on Monday night. Santa Clara head coach Kerry Keating said someone with Lin's do-a-bit-of-everything success needs talent and motivation.
"It wouldn't matter if it were Jeremy Lin or Player X from any school," Keating said. "If you play harder than anyone on the floor all the time, good things are usually going to happen.
"If you're a smart player as well, good things are going to happen in addition to that."
If Keating had contacted Lin a little earlier four years ago, Keating's former and current schools might be reaping the benefits today. Lin led Palo Alto High to the CIF Division II state title in his senior season of 2005-06. During that season, he had hoped one of three schools - Cal, Stanford or UCLA - would give him a scholarship.
Lin got no scholarship offers - from those three schools or any others - and then committed to Harvard. At the time, Keating was an assistant coach for the Bruins' Ben Howland.
After one of Palo Alto's postseason games, Keating talked with Lin, offering him a recruited walk-on opportunity in Westwood. Lin chose to stick with Harvard.
"It's not like I didn't know he wasn't good four or five years ago," Keating said. "I watched him win a championship. ... In hindsight now, given UCLA's current state, he'd probably be starting for UCLA at point guard."
And if Lin were starting for UCLA at point guard, he wouldn't be playing at the Leavey Center on Monday night and he wouldn't have scored 17 points and had nine assists in the Crimson's 73-68 victory over Santa Clara at Harvard last season.
As an Asian American, Lin has endured more than his share of taunts. "Everything you can think of - I've pretty much heard it all," he said.
When he went to the free-throw line during his 30-point performance in a 79-73 loss at Connecticut last month, someone in the stands reportedly blurted, "wonton soup."
Some players who get heckled - for whatever reasons - say they use those barbs as inspiration. Lin takes a different approach.
"I'm not very good in terms of using stuff for fuel," he said. "When I get angry, I play out of character. I'm more of a tune-it-out guy."
Lin has thrived at Harvard, but to project him as an NBA player might be a stretch. A scout who had nothing but good things to say about Lin as a college player believes it's highly unlikely Lin can make it in the league.
Though Lin acknowledged he'd like to play basketball for a living, whether in the NBA, the NBA Development League or overseas, he said, "I'm not focused on that at all. I don't want to sell my teammates short, be worrying about the wrong things, playing for the wrong reasons.
"The coaches and I aren't talking about any of that stuff at all until after the season."
One topic head coach Tommy Amaker, Lin and his teammates do discuss is winning the Ivy League championship. Believe it or not, Harvard has no Ivy League titles in men's basketball.
"We get a nice reminder every day at practice when we see all the girls' Ivy League championship banners and we have zero on our side," Lin said.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/03/SPA31BCKUC.DTL#ixzz0bnjm9a7W
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