In some ways, Jeremy Lin is miraculously lucky. Undrafted out of Harvard, Lin parlayed a 10-day contract with the New York Knicks into worldwide fame, based on a two-week stretch of play that's still referred to as "Linsanity."
Lin, of course, couldn't keep that pace forever. After his scintillating start, he's settled in as a pretty good NBA player, good enough to earn millions of dollars and major minutes off the bench for the Charlotte Hornets. Yet for some reason, security guards continue to ask Lin to show his ID when entering the locker room at opposing arenas.
"It's one of those things where it literally happens everywhere," Lin told ESPN. "At opposing arenas, it happens all the time. Just the other night in Brooklyn, I was trying to leave [Barclays Center] and one of the ladies was like, 'Hey, I need your credentials for you to pass.' And then someone else was like, 'Oh, he's a player. He's good.'
"I'm used to it by now," he said. "It's just part of being Asian in the NBA."
A video posted by a Reddit user last week shows that "part of being Asian in the NBA" might manifest itself on-the-court as well as off. The video shows Lin taking hard fouls from players around the league, and the referees failing to either issue a flagrant foul or, in some cases, issue any kind of foul at all.
Lin addressed the video last night, saying—in essence—it has a point.
Some prominent NBA writers tweeted their interpretation of the video, concluding racial bias played a part:
https://twitter.com/jaycaspiankang/status/719752920573435904
https://twitter.com/jaycaspiankang/status/719760204166868993
On Monday night, after Lin addressed the video, he went to the free throw line 10 times in the first half. He hit all 10 free throws.
Michael Rosen is a reporter for Fusion based out of Oakland.