When Yao Ming came to the NBA back in 2002, despite being a 7’6” Chinese behemoth, the other big men in the league, particularly Shaquille O’Neal look to him as soft.
But that was just a perception because Yao proves eventually that he is a tough cookie down the middle and can take body hits as much as dish a couple too against opponents.
It seems that the same perception has been passed on to the 26-year-old Jeremy Lin of the Los Angeles Lakers. The difference between him and Yao is that he is a Taiwanese who grew up in America while Yao came directly from China. But the yellow race in Lin’s blood stream is very evident in his person.
The Harvard graduate says that he is being perceived to be soft and laid back by other people, including players, fans, and spectators, because of his Asian-American ethnicity, reports China Topix.
Most polarizing player
Jeremy Lin is regarded as one of the most polarizing players in the NBA and he never backs down from saying that Asian-Americans are the model minority in the league.
The point guard says that Asian-Americans in the NBA are usually the ones being the butt or subject of most of the jokes compared to other races. He said the stereotyping has also made the Asian-Americans subjects of abuse in the community.
He laments the fact that certain guys are allowed to make fun on Asian-Americans but do not do so with the other races. He says that Asians are so easy to make fun of because everyone can joke about Asians. Lin also stressed that Asians are nice and very respectful people so they would just take all the jokes and set it aside like nothing ever happened.
Jeremy Lin’s journey
Jeremy Lin joined the 2010 NBA draft but was undrafted. He eventually signed with the Golden State Warriors as an undrafted free agent. He signed with the New York Knicks during the 2011-12 season.
It was when he was in the New York Knicks when he became famous for that memorable Linsanity spell of his that actually helped turned things around for the franchise, especially when its superstar Carmelo Anthony went down with an injury.
But despite his remarkable performance with the Knicks, Jeremy Lin was eventually released to the Houston Rockets where he signed a $25 million three-year deal starting with the 2012-13 season.
On the last year of his three-year contract with the Rockets, Lin was shipped to the Los Angeles Lakers. He played the first 20 games as a starter but was eventually relegated as a bench player by new Lakers head coach Byron Scott because he cannot keep up with the supposed Princeton-based offense.
Scott also demanded toughness and aggressiveness on Jeremy Lin because he has been so used to scrappy, and old-school playing attitude, which he also got while playing for the Showtime franchise back in the 80s.