"Linsanity" is leading to the rise of Basketball in China - NBA Update
Jeremy Lin’s outstanding rise to stardom in the last few days has not only helped him in cementinga starting place in the New York Knicks, it has also made him a superstar in his native country China.
With the retirement of Yao Ming from NBA, it was expected that no other player from the country would ever be able to make an impact at the big stage, and therefore it was feared that Basketball in China would decline.
However, according to NBA China CEO David Shoemaker, Lin’s rise has increased the NBA following in the country and merchandise sales at an exponential rate, which is excellent news for China.
"What we've seen, the huge enthusiasm and the frenzy around Jeremy is just serving to act as a further catalyst to grow the sport of basketball and to grow the NBA in China in a very short period," We're caught up witnessing what
we see globally as a passion for sport, really a love of the underdog story and the global appeal for the NBA and that's all come through in spades in a short period of time, in about 10 days," Shoemaker said.
Ming, like everyone else, had been following Lin’s heroics last month and is delighted with his countryman’s performance. He believes this will boost basketball in the country and encourage lots of youngsters to pursue this as
a career.
Ming added, that despite hailing from different regions – Ming from Shanghai and Lin from Northern California, both were friends because of their ethnicity and often talked to each others on the phone or texts.
"The environments in which we were raised were very different, but I'm really happy that a guard like him could appear out of nowhere and have such a huge impact on the NBA," Yao said
Lin and Yao have never played against each other, however last year; Lin did feature in the charity game, organized by Ming in Taiwan.
Ming also thinks Lin has skills that could help him in ending as one of the best foreign players in the league.
Lin, who was averaging only 6 points by the end of January, has boosted his average to 14.3 points this month. In his last 9 games, he has produced seven 20 plus and one 30 plus tallies, which is just phenomenal. New York Knicks
had been looking for a solid point guard for a very long time and in Lin, they have found one.
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