YouSpeak: Linsanity
NBA star earns place in the zeitgeist
Linsanity, the adoration of Jeremy Lin, the come-from-behind point guard for the New York Knicks, has roared up the coast from New York to Boston, and spawned, among other things, some of the worst puns in recent memory.
Harvard grad Lin was unknown to most Americans just a month ago. No NBA team drafted him in 2010. He was cut by two teams (the Golden State Warriors and the Houston Rockets) before the Knicks picked him up on December 27. But on February 4, Lin scored 25 points, setting an NBA record for a player from Harvard. Since then, he has averaged 25 points a game, captured two consecutive Sports Illustrated covers, and garnered hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers. His prowess on the court has also inspired dozens of newspaper headlines, most puns on his name. Among them: “Just Lin Time: Knicks Phenom Saving Season” (Chicago Tribune), “Amasian” and “ThriLIN” (New York Post), and “We’ll Lin and Bear It Today” (Northjersey.com).
What’s behind the cultural phenomenon that’s come to be known as “Linsanity”? We decided to find out for ourselves.
So this week’s YouSpeak asks: “What do you think of Linsanity?”
“YouSpeak” typically appears each Monday.
If you have a suggestion for a question we should ask, post it in the comments section below.
Alan Wong can be reached at alanwong@bu.edu. Nicolae Ciorogan can be reached at ciorogan@bu.edu.
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