On this day 10 years ago, Linsanity was at an all-time high. Knicks fans were waking up on the morning of Feb. 11 still in awe of Jeremy Lin’s rapid rise, which had peaked with a 38-point performance over Kobe Bryant and the Lakers the day before.
In an unforgettable nine-game span that began with a win over the Nets on Feb. 4, Lin shot 51 percent from the floor and averaged 25 points per game, helping a shorthanded and underperforming Knicks team to a seven-game winning streak and eight wins in those nine games. Lin, an undrafted guard out of Harvard, was suddenly a cultural phenomenon and one of the most talked-about players in the NBA in the span of two weeks.
Now a decade since that memorable time in New York, Lin filmed a video on social media recounting all of the improbable obstacles that he had to clear just to get a chance to turn Linsanity into reality.
“I always say Linsanity was the perfect storm of all these circumstances outside my control,” Lin said. “If any one of things didn’t happen, Linsanity would not have happened.
“I had worked out for the Knicks in predraft, and that was my best workout. Because of that workout, they had their eye on me, and that’s why, two years later, they were able to pick me up when I got cut from the Rockets.”
Houston had claimed Lin off of waivers after he was waived by the Warriors, who initially saw him as Steph Curry’s backup, but placed him on waivers on Christmas Eve after his only appearance with the team came in two preseason games.
“I remember the Rockets actually wanted to keep me that season, so they were trying to do a trade to make a spot open for me,” Lin recalled. “Because they were trying to trade for me, they ended up cutting me 24 hours later than they were supposed to cut me. But what happens it, when you get cut, you’re on the waiver wire for 48 hours, and during those 48 hours, you can get picked up by another team.”
Just one day after Lin was placed on waivers by the Rockets, promising Knicks rookie Iman Shumpert suffered an MCL sprain during New York’s Christmas Day game against the Celtics in what was the team’s season opener (the lockout that year delayed the start to the season). The Knicks suddenly needed some backcourt help.
“During that 48-hour span, Iman Shumpert got a knee injury, and because of his knee injury, New York was able to pick me up on the waiver wire,” Lin said. “That happened to be the lockout season, and only in a lockout season…do you play three games in a row. My breakout game against the Nets was on the last night of our only back-to-back-to-back that season.”
Lin shot 10-for-19 and scored 25 points in that win over the Nets, and the rest was history.
“Things that I feel like are miracles, God bringing together a perfect storm to allow Linsanity to happen,” Lin said.
Follow Ryan Chichester on Twitter: @ryanchichester1
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