Things started off great for Lin in H-town, which welcomed him with
Things started off great for Lin in H-town, which welcomed him with open arms as they had previously for Lin’s hero, Chinese superstar Yao Ming. But after Rockets GM Daryl Morey traded for bearded ballhog James Harden, and then opened up his pockets to sign tower of power Dwight Howard, it was clear there wasn’t enough space in Space City for Lin to launch. Remanded to the bench, he alternated between flashes of nostalgic brilliance and stretches of flat or erratic play.
Escaping Houston was one big win; the second was getting the NBA’s iconic Asian American player to Los Angeles, whose Asian American television market, 2.4 million viewers in 750,000 households, is the largest in the nation, and five times the size of Houston’s. That’s why Karthick Ramakrishnan, who heads the AAPIVoices.com data visualization project, asserted that it simply made “good business sense” for the Lakers to trade for Lin. By drawing in Asian Americans, his arrival will help reinvigorate the Lakers’ disgruntled local fanbase, which last year sat through a disastrous season in which the team stumbled to a last-place 27-55 record, its second-worst finish in history.
And it’s quite conceivable that Lin could play a key role in getting the team back on a winning track. He’ll be on the last year of his contract. He’ll have plenty to prove, while playing alongside his one-time rival Kobe Bryant (who famously told the world that he had no idea who Lin was — that is, until the latter dropped 38 points on him in their first face-to-face matchup).