The legacy of Jeremy Lin and ‘Linsanity’

On Saturday, Jeremy Lin officially ended his 15-year professional basketball career, announcing his retirement via Instagram. While it’s important to appreciate the totality of those 15 years, the Taiwanese American will be remembered most for his scintillating stretch of games known as “Linsanity” that took the world by storm (I swear, I’m not exaggerating) in 2012.

Coming into February 2012, Lin was not a totally anonymous professional basketball player, but he was an afterthought. Underrecruited out of high school, undrafted after a strong career at Harvard University (not exactly known for producing NBA stars), and bouncing between leagues overseas, the NBA D-League, and the end of NBA benches, Lin stepped in on Feb. 4, 2012 to play significant minutes for a depleted New York Knicks team in their third game in three nights.

“So much stuff had to come together at the right moment—my back was against the wall,” Lin told The Ringer a decade later, speaking about that night. “That was going to be it for me. My agent had actually called me before the game and said, ‘If you don’t play well, tonight will probably be your last game in the NBA.’”

Lin scored 25 points and dished out seven assists, and that turned out to be just the beginning. He stepped into the starting lineup the next game, the Knicks went on a seven-game winning streak, and Lin became the first NBA player to score at least 20 points and have seven assists in each of his first five starts.

The numbers, as incredible as they are, don’t quite do it justice. Lin did this all in New York City, the main stage of basketball and much of culture. He scored 38 points to beat Kobe Bryant’s Los Angeles Lakers. He hit multiple game-winning shots. He was on the cover of Time magazine. 

And that he did this all as an Asian American was frequently not handled well by the media and fans. Lin has recalled encountering racist remarks as early as high school, and believed that racial bias factored into his lack of recruitment. That followed him into the spotlight, with multiple high-profile racist comments leveled towards Lin during Linsanity. Those comments perhaps reached their nadir with an ESPN article recapping a Knicks loss that was infamously headlined “Chink in the Armor.” 

Lin gradually drifted from the spotlight, but never completely. He continued to play meaningful basketball for several NBA teams, even becoming the first Asian American to win an NBA Finals as a member of the Toronto Raptors in 2019. And he has remained a prominent public figure, particularly in speaking out against anti-Asian racism in 2020.

For some, Lin’s post-Linsanity career may have felt like a bit of a letdown. After a few weeks of looking like an All Star, Lin never reached those heights again, or really came close. But also, it may make it even more impressive that after all of that scrutiny, Lin was able to move forward and sustain a steady, consistent career while handling the attention with grace. And really, Linsanity was enough.

In February 2012, I was a high school senior muddling my way through a season riding my high school team’s bench; Linsanity was thrilling, inspiring, and life giving to me in ways I didn’t know I needed, and I’m sure it was for countless others. Out of nowhere, some random undrafted kid from Harvard gave that to the world. That’s Lin’s legacy, and it’s going to last a long time.