New York’s Madison Square Garden caught Linsanity!

Any true New Yorker will stand his ground when it comes to his sports teams and the New York teams are just as emblematic for the Big Apple that the Statue of Liberty. Now that the football season is over which culminated in the Giants winning the Super Bowl 2012, the focus lies on basketball and the New York Knicks have brought to us one of the greatest surprises in sports in a long time. If you’re planning on renting apartments in New York any time soon remember this name: Jeremy Lin.

Photo Credit: Fotopedia.com

To sum up Lin’s story in a nutshell: In the last couple of weeks Lin went from undrafted third-string point guard to starting point guard for the Knicks leading the team to a 5 game winning streak finishing every game with at least 20 points and 7 assists. In the victory over the Los Angeles Lakers he even outscored NBA superstar Kobe Bryant.

If you don’t follow sports and basketball in particular, you may ask yourself what exactly is it that makes his story so special and impactful not just in the sports world but in our culture. I will give you the quick facts: Lin graduated from Ivy League Harvard University, which isn’t exactly the gateway to a successful career in professional sports and he is the first Asian-American to play in the NBA.

Photo Source: TheWeek.com

There is this notion that you can either be one of the other. Either you have the brains to go to an Ivy League school or you have the abilities and the talent to become a professional athlete. In addition, nobody would have ever expected Lin to play in the NBA yet become such a phenomenon and this is more than anything is because of his Asian background. People of Asian descent are thought of being not built for basketball. You only have to take a look around for Asian people in the professional area of this sport. But the lack of players doesn’t reflect the popularity that basketball enjoys in the Asian community.

Though Lin doesn’t impress with spectacular dunks and almost superhuman athleticism like some of his colleagues, he has caused more excitement in Madison Square Garden than anyone else in a long time. Many Knicks fans have come up with various nicknames and if you stay in New York apartments I strongly encourage you to get some Knicks tickets and join the “Linsanity.”

* Miss Moci has Master’s degree in sport psychology and accidentally on purpose stumbled into writing. She is the daughter of a German father and a Filipino mother, she grew up in Germany, lived in the US, Denmark and currently resides in Barcelona.