Linsanity: The Rise of Jeremy Lin and why he is worth more than $25 million. -Zane Langdon

Jeremy Lin is the definition of a success story.  He started off in Palo Alto, California and received no scholarship for his athletic abilities, he went to play basketball at Harvard (where he also graduated with a degree in Economics).  After Lin went undrafted in the 2010 NBA draft, he looked to latch on to an NBA team.  If he did not succeed within a year he was going to forgo his basketball career and look to put his Harvard degree to use.  Lin then signed a contract with his hometown Golden State Warriors, and in Tebow-esque fashion the team held a press conference for their undrafted, highly doubted reserve point guard.  Also following the strange pattern, Lin got a contract from Nike and his jersey was available to buy at the team store, something that is usually reserved for the better players on the team.  Lin also activated for his first NBA game on Asian Heritage Night, when he went in with 2:32 in the game, he was met with a standing ovation (ESPN Article).  Later on that season, Lin also played in Toronto's Asian Heritage Night, which drew a large crowd of Chinese media members (ESPN).  After the NBA's lockout in which Lin worked to become a better player he was cut twice, once by the Warriors and then by the Rockets. Lin was then signed by the Knicks to help bolster their injury plagued backcourt.  Then Linsanity began on February 4th.  In a game against the Nets and their all-star point-guard Lin posted career highs in points, rebounds, and assists.  After the game, he gained support from Carmelo Anthony, the teams superstar. who told the the coach to play him more.  Lin's play in the following week earned him NBA Player of the Week, during this time span he averaged 27.3 points and 8.3 assists, becoming the first player in NBA history to get at least 20 and 7 in his first 4 NBA starts (NBA press release).  Lin's capping moment of that stretch is when he hit his game winning shot against the Raptors (which can be seen here).  In the off-season, Lin was a restricted free agent, giving the Knicks the chance to match any offer on him that any team made, someone in the organization made the comment they would pay him up to a billion dollars.  But then the Houston Rockets came in and made an offer that had a "poison pill" in it.  On Lin's contract, he would make 5 million, 5.225 million then the poison pill of 14.8 million in the third year (ESPN).  Lin's contract leads to the argument of why he is worth more than $25 million dollars to the Houston Rockets and the NBA. 

The financial impact of Jeremy Lin and Linsanity is something that is truly astounding.  When Yao Ming came into the NBA, that generated a lot of interest from the Asian markets as he was one of the first Chinese players to succeed in the NBA.  After a few attempts by other players, Sun Yue and Yi Jianlian, there was not much for the Asian fans to latch onto after Yao's career was shut down due to his injuries.  The initial success of Linsanity was mind boggling and unprecedented, even for Michael Jordan.  In a span of 5 days from the beginning of Linsanity in New York last year, the Madison Square Garden stock (who owns the Knicks) rose 9.2%, his impact on the television was incredible too, with a rise of viewership of his games increasing 70%.  In a week, the Knicks website was viewed at 550% more than it had been the previous week.  Finally, the jersey sales were through the roof.  Madison Square Gardens store saw an increase in traffic of 3,000% and the NBA store said that his jersey quickly moved to the 10th spot of the most popular (the article was published on 2/15/12, Lin started 2/4/12) (McCarthy and Yu, 2012).  All of those numbers just came within the first week of Lin's unprecedented success.   He was truly a transforming icon for the Asian community across the globe.  With Lin signing in Houston, it sets him up in a great position.  Prior to Lin, the Rockets had the afore mentioned Yao Ming.  With the Rockets success with Lin, they became a popular entity in Asia.  People were doing whatever was possible to get the Rockets game to watch Yao, buy his jersey, whatever they could do to watch their cultural icon play.  With this success, the Rockets became globally popular, which means they make more money.  With exclusive television deals and arena naming rights of the Toyota Center which was worth $100 million dollars.  While the deal came into place when Yao was playing for the Rockets, Lin's ability to keep the endorsement dollars flowing from Asian based companies will continue to benefit the Rockets greatly.  If they were to get another deal with an Asian based company like the one with Toyota, their investment in Lin is well worth it.  Lin has proven he has a huge potential market and is worth a lot of money, so the justification is there even if he does not perform to his contract standards.  The Asian people have proven that they will stand behind Lin, so the Rockets are smart to benefit from this and thus making him worth his money.