The Story Behind ‘Linsanity”
By Terry Lyons
BOSTON – This is a story worthy of narration by Peter Coyote or David McCullough. The voice of Morgan Freeman might be too much to handle.
This is the story of Jeremy Lin and the “Linsanity” which swept through New York and the NBA 10 years ago. To fully understand the story of Linsanity, one must first understand the story of the great Mike D’Antoni for without D’Antoni, “Linsanity” would’ve never materialized.
Here’s how it went down:
The 2011-12 NBA season started on Christmas Day, December 25th after a July 1st expiration of the NBA/NBA Players Association Collective Bargaining Agreement and subsequent lockout. The league was just days away from losing the entire season but came to terms with an agreement to jumpstart the regular season by Christmas to fulfill mega TV dollars.
The season began and looked a lot like NBA preseason. Games came at a frequent pace and the players were tired, out of NBA game shape and feeling it a month into the truncated season.
Coach D’Antoni was at the helm of the New York Knickerbockers and they limped into Boston Garden on February 3, 2012 for the middle game of a back-to-back-to-back in the condensed season schedule. D’Antoni and his Knicks departed with a 91-89 loss to the Celtics, a two-game losing streak and an 8-15 record. Worse than that, the Knicks were badly banged-up, especially at the point guard position.
The New Yorkers were fumbling around with a backcourt of Iman Shumpert, Toney Douglas, a washed-up Mike Bibby, and an injured Baron Davis who was suffering from an elbow infection, severe back pain and couldn’t suit up. When D’Antoni was finished with his media obligations after the loss at Boston Garden that night, I remember walking aside with a friend and confidante of 23 years and asking, “What the hell are you going to do?”
“Jeremy Lin is gonna get his chance,” said D’Antoni in his distinctive West Virginia way.
While some looked at Lin as a deep reserve or a (then) D-League prospect, those of us who saw him play at Harvard from 2006-07 to 2009-10 knew there were some amazing skills hidden beneath his 6-foot-3, weak, lanky frame. Lin showed improvement in his sophomore season of college ball, often bringing Harvard’s tiny Laviettes Pavilion fans to their feet in amazement. By the time he was a junior, he was an All-IVY League point guard and the only NCAA Division I player who was in the Top 10 in his conference in scoring (17.8), rebounding (5.5), assists (4.3), steals (2.4), blocked shots (0.6), field goal percentage (0.502), free throw percentage (0.744), and three-point shot percentage (0.400).
In Lin’s senior year of ‘09-10, he carried the Harvard Crimson team, averaging 16.4 points, 4.4 rebounds, 4.5 assists, 2.4 steals, and 1.1 blocks, and was again a unanimous selection for the All-IVY League First Team. He was one of 30 midseason candidates for the John R. Wooden Award (College Player of the Year) and one of 11 finalists for the Bob Cousy Award named annually by the Basketball Hall of Fame to recognize the best point guards in college basketball.
Lin was on the radar for a small group of Boston/Cambridge basketball fans but few outside of Boston or the IVY League crowd even knew his name. He went undrafted in the 2010 NBA Draft. Soon after, Donnie Nelson of the Dallas Mavericks signed Lin to a make-good summer league contract but the Mavericks did not offer him an NBA deal that summer.
The Golden State Warriors did and on July 21, 2010 Lin became a member of the Warriors (B.T.W.G) which translates to “before they were good,” as evidenced by their 26-56 won-loss record in 2009-10. The Bay Area was a good fit for the American-born guard of Asian (Taiwanese) descent, and that was amplified by the fact he graduated from nearby Palo Alto High School and brought his very own fan club along for the ride, many showing up and buying tickets for rod games, too.
The problem for Lin was that he was playing behind Steph Curry and Monta Ellis, two basketball-needy guards who didn’t flinch at playing 40+ minutes a game. Buried on the bench with only an occasional downgrade to the D-League Reno Bighorns for much-needed seasoning and playing time. In Reno, he averaged 18 points, 5.8 rebounds and 4.4 assists and made the D-League All-Defensive team to boot. Everything he was asked to do, he did. In everything he did, he began to excel. Yet, before the 2011-12 season, the Warriors were forced to waive Lin to clear salary cap space for the free agent signing of DeAndre Jordan.
Lin bounced from the Warriors to the Houston Rockets to the Knicks, a victim of clearing salary cap space once again, as the Rockets went big with the signing of center Samuel Dalembert. Two days after Christmas and the opening of the delayed NBA season, Lin was claimed off waivers by New York, prior to the rapid-fire injuries to their backcourt.
Aside from knowing Lin “was going to get his chance,” D’Antoni elaborated as the Knicks limped back to New York, saying, “the one thing you can say about Jeremy is that he’s very coachable. You never have to tell him something twice and when you teach a step or technique, he uses it immediately.”
I watched the Knicks leave the TD Boston Garden that night, looking at the team bus somewhat sadly as I waved good-bye to my longtime friend like a Band-Aid waving to the Stillwater Band in Almost Famous. It was not a wave of sadness or despair, it was a wave of hope.
To me, D’Antoni became just “Mike” in 1987 at the McDonald’s Open in Milwaukee when he was the starting point guard for Tracer Milan of Italy. After the initial acquaintance, we met frequently, usually along with his wife and son in Europe after he retired from playing but undertook big-time European coaching gigs first with his Milano club but more prominently at Benetton Treviso where he led the rival club to Italian League titles and a trip to the 2002 EuroLeague Final Four in Bologna.
When he wasn’t coaching in the Final Four, he was attending as a celebrated coach and all-time fan favorite – even for rival teams in Spain. Put it this way, Mike didn’t pay for a dinner or a drink in Italy, Spain or West Virginia.
His coaching resume expanded with a job coaching the Denver Nuggets in 1997-98 and short pre-season stint to assist the San Antonio Spurs as they navigated Milan for the 1999 McDonald’s Open. All the while, D’Antoni stressed an up-tempo offense, second to none.
By 2005-06, D’Antoni ran his famed “Seven Seconds or Less” offense for the Phoenix Suns with soon-to-be MVP point guard Steve Nash running the show. The Suns went 62-20 and he won NBA Coach of the Year honors while Nash became the best point guard in the league.
In 2008, with the Suns somewhat imploding a couple years after longtime Suns managing partner and GM Jerry Colangelo sold 30% of the franchise to current owner Robert Sarver, D’Antoni and company headed for greener pastures and that aligned the universe and the world’s Most Famous Arena for Linsanity.
On the third game of that back-to-back-to-back, Saturday, February 12, 2012 at The Garden, Linsanity began with a seat on the bench. D’Antoni started the ailing Shumpert and Landry Fields at the guard position, but substituted Lin who logged a team-high 35:52 minutes, scoring 25 points on 10-for-19 shooting. He added seven assists, two steals and five rebounds with only one turnover as New York defeated New Jersey (now Brooklyn), 99-92.
Knicks star forward Carmelo Anthony encouraged D’Antoni to give Lin more minutes, as did center-forward Amare Stoudimire, but both players would soon be added to the Knicks’ injury lists as the team resembled more of a M*A*S*H unit than an NBA team.
Lin got the start the next game, which ended as a 99-88 home win over the Utah Jazz. Lin played 44:52 minutes, scoring 28 points on 10-17 shooting with eight assists and an equal number of turnovers, a sign of concern.
The phenomenon of insanity grew and grew, and it carried on because of The Garden’s victory-starving crowd who fueled the ride. In his 12 starts before the NBA All-Star break, Lin averaged 22.5 points and 8.7 assists per game, and New York surged to a 9–3 streak, including the first seven in a row since that game up in Boston. The Knicks reached the .500 mark on February 15 and were 17-18 at the break. However, the shooting star was faltering, slightly, as opposing NBA team scouts focused-in on New York’s style, the way to double team Lin while the injury-ridden Knicks had nothing more in the gas tank.
D’Antoni was dismissed in March and former Knicks forward Mike Woodsontook over, slowing the offense down and running few pick-and-rolls as he favored an isolation game featuring Anthony. Meanwhile, Davis returned to play the point and Lin’s run was over.
During the offseason of 2012, the Houston Rockets concocted a free agent offer sheet for Lin with two years at about $5 million and a third year, ‘poison pill’ at $14.5m. The Knicks signed Raymond Felton and Linsanity died a natural death somewhere between the Hudson River and Galveston Bay.
HERE NOW, THE NOTES: José Pañeda, the official Spanish-language voice of the Miami Heat, has been awarded the National Sports Media Association (NSMA) award for Best Broadcaster in Florida. The popular Cuban-American narrator, affiliated with the Heat Spanish Radio Network since the club’s establishment in 1988, became the first Spanish-language broadcaster to win the prestigious NSMA national award.
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FROZEN FENWAY: The 2023 NHL Winter Classic will feature the Boston Bruins at Fenway Park, America’s Most Beloved Ballpark. The game will mark the fifth NHL regular-season outdoor game for the Bruins and the second time the Winter Classic is scheduled for Fenway Park, home of the Red Sox. Boston defeated the Philadelphia Flyers 2-1 in OT in the 2010 NHL Winter Classic and the Bruins lost to Montreal, 5-1, when Gillette Stadium played host to the event in 2016. Says the NHL’s official news release, “The game continues the NHL tradition of hosting a regular-season outdoor game at the onset of the New Year. The 2023 edition will mark the 15-year anniversary of the first NHL Winter Classic in Buffalo. Boston’s opponent, broadcast information and a confirmed details for the 2023 NHL Winter Classic will be announced at a later date.
In their two other outdoor games, the Bruins played the Chicago Blackhawks in the 2019 NHL Winter Classic at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana. The Bruins won, 4-2, in front of 76,126 at sold-out Notre Dame, the second largest crowd in nHL history. Tuukka Rask made 36 saves and Sean Kuraly scored the game winner to elevate the Bruins to the victory.
The Bruins played in the NHL ‘Outdoors’ game in beautiful Lake Tahoe, Nevada on February 21, 2021. David Pastrnak recorded a hat trick as the Bruins topped the Philadelphia Flyers, 7-3.
