Lin may not wear his faith on his sleeve. But he does wear it on his wrist. The orange bracelet reads "In Jesus Name I Play"
Lin credits his faith for helping him endure being cut by two teams this season, including Golden State. That jersey will now be a collector's item.
For anyone who watched the new prince of New York, Jeremy Lin, slice through the NBA champion Dallas Mavericks in Sunday's nationally-televised win, his remarkable skills seemed obvious. But as any follower of Linsanity (because it's officially a movement now) knows, it wasn't so obvious to the two teams which had already cut the sudden superstar earlier this season.
Lin admits being shaken by those decisions which left the talented point guard angry and with strange, new feelings of doubt and anxiety about his career. Yet he kept silent while stewing that these teams would toss him aside.
And now, finally given an opportunity to take the floor every night for an NBA team, he's letting his game do the talking. Every slick pass or nifty drive to the hoop delivering a lesson to those that didn't think he could make it.
Actions over words. It's the same approach the devout Lin has taken with his religion.
As we learn more about the new 6' 3" national obsession, Lin's deeply-held Christian beliefs have started to draw a lot of attention. Yet he has managed to avoid the kind of controversy that accompanied another religious athlete's recent rise, Tim Tebow.
You won't see Lin celebrating a victory by pointing to the heavens then taking a knee in prayer. You know, Tebowing. There's no "Linning." Unless you count jumping up and down, shouting and pumping a fist as a display of devotion. And so, many who have followed Lin's underdog story are not immediately aware of the strong undercurrent which he largely credits for pushing it toward this remarkable point.
"Sometimes you come up against a mountain," he recently told the San Jose Mercury News. "And you end up making the mountain seem bigger than God."
His pastor says it's Lin's faith which has enabled him to handle the turbulence in his first year-plus in the NBA. "The ups and downs that he’s had in his career, and obviously being overlooked for a long time, he could fall into despair,” Lin's pastor told the New York Daily News. "He didn't."
Even now, with much of that turbulence seemingly behind him, a quick look at Lin's Twitter page is all you need to see his success and celebrity in the City That Never Sleeps hasn't changed his priorities. His bio reads "to know Him is to want to know Him more" and sits alongside a profile pic of Jesus telling a young man "No I'm not talking about Twitter. I literally want you to follow me."
That all may be a bit of a letdown for any fans on Twitter hoping the Knicks phenom would feed their basketball jones with some hoops-centric info and an avatar of Lin's new SI cover, instead of Jesus. Or at the very least a pic of him throwing one down tagged with the hashtag #LinYourFace! Since when did basketball stars do humility?
But his parents must be proud.
"They brought me up in a Christian home and taught me what it means to be a Christian," Lin explained while still a senior at Harvard two years ago. "They don’t judge my basketball performance on how I do individually in terms of statistics. They make sure that I have the right attitude, that I don’t yell at my teammates or the refs and that I’m always under control ... They make sure I have a godly attitude when I play."
Again, actions over words. And his current Knicks teammates have been offering, well, praise for Lin's style of play and attitude. “One thing I love about him, he’s humble. He doesn’t take all the credit,” guard Toney Douglas told the Daily News. Douglas says he's seen Lin seek out church services while the team's on road trips and Knicks' forward/ex-Lin roommate Landry Fields says the two of them speak very frequently about religion.
"I know he's a humble guy who works hard every day, so that will never change," ex-Golden State Warrior teammate Stephen Curry told the Mercury News.
The story of Lin's rise, ridiculous success and sustained humility have impressed those within the religious community as well. One church just released a sermon titled "Linsanity and the Gospel," which writes about perseverance and faith. A Christian news site just published an op-ed titled "When God Speaks Through Linsanity." Its author suggests that "God seems to be periodically inserting those who follow Him into the limelight to ... encourage us."
When all this started, Jeremy Lin was just an amazing, fantastically unlikely feel-good story. Now he's a Chosen One with a divine mission? Sounds like a lot for a 23-year-old who already carries the weight of millions of frenzied Knicks fans' expectations on his shoulders.
But his pastor Stephen Chen tells the Washington Post that's one more challenge Lin would likely accept. "For Jeremy, when he plays basketball he feels God’s pleasure because he understands how he has been made. Does he feel like he wants to take these gifts that God has given him and use it to proclaim Christ? Yes. I think he would say yes."
After all, as the Twitter profile pic says, "I literally want you to follow me."
And considering where he's led the once-lifeless Knicks, Lin's teammates, fans and supporters of all backgrounds couldn't be blamed for agreeing to fall in line.
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