Talk:Jeremy Lin

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Jeremy Lin has been listed as one of the Sports and recreation good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
June 6, 2012	Peer review	Reviewed
April 21, 2016	Good article nominee	Listed
A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on May 14, 2016. The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that Jeremy Lin (pictured) and Jordan Clarkson were the first Asian Americans in NBA history to start together at guard?
A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on August 23, 2022.
Current status: Good article

faq page

Frequently asked questions

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Ethnicity and nationality

Q1: Why is Lin the first Chinese player in the NBA when there was Yao Ming and other Chinese before him?

A1: Lin was born in America, and has American nationality, while Yao Ming does not. He is the first American of Chinese or Taiwanese descent to play in the league.[1]

Q2: Sources say Lin is Taiwanese-American. Why is it mentioned he is of Chinese descent?

A2: Regardless of whether Taiwan is considered part of China, Lin is of Chinese descent since his maternal grandmother is originally from Zhejiang, China.[2]. No precedence is given to his descent based upon his parents being from Taiwan. He is still of Chinese descent in addition to being of Taiwanese descent. Sources refer to Lin being of Chinese descent.[3][4][5][6] Lin himself has said, "You can call me a Taiwanese basketball player, a Chinese basketball player or just a basketball player."[7]

Q3: Taiwan is part of China. Why is Taiwanese mentioned when he is really Chinese?

A3: Both of Lin's parents grew up in Taiwan before emigrating to the United States, and Lin's ancestors have been in Taiwan since the 18th Century.[8] The Wikipedia article only says Lin is an American of "Taiwanese descent", in reference to the origin of his ancestors; this does not imply nationality and is independent of the political status of Taiwan. Lin himself has said, "You can call me a Taiwanese basketball player, a Chinese basketball player or just a basketball player."[9]

Q4: Why is "or" used instead of "and" in "Lin is ... the first American of Chinese or Taiwanese descent to play in the league."

A4: There had never been an American NBA player before of Chinese descent. There had also never been an American of Taiwanese descent. Using "and" is more restrictive. It would imply that there was previously a Chinese-American that wasn't of Taiwanese descent in the NBA, or a Taiwanese-American that wasn't of Chinese descent. Neither of which had occurred. Using "or" is less restrictive, and more encompassing of all conditions of Lin's milestone.[10][11]

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This article has been mentioned by a media organization:

Jen Chung (December 27, 2011). "Knicks Sign Asian-American Guard/ Harvard Grad Jeremy Lin". Gothamist.

The following references may be useful when improving this article in the future:

Park, M. K. (2015). Race, Hegemonic Masculinity, and the "Linpossible!": An Analysis of Media Representations of Jeremy Lin. Communication & Sport, 3(4), 367-389.

First Asian NBA?

What about Yao Ming of the Houston Rockets? 174.105.45.227 (talk) 22:15, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What about him? – Muboshgu (talk) 22:20, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed that article should be updated because Yao Ming who is nationally and ethnically Chinese was drafted in 2002. It should either read that Jeremy Lin is the first player of Taiwanese descent to play in the NBA or say something about Jeremy Lin being the first Chinese American in the league. Leexinfo (talk) 03:14, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's already prefaced in the lead with "first American of": Lin was the first American of Chinese or Taiwanese descent to play in the NBA...—Bagumba (talk) 06:43, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oh boy, I just consistently misread that sentence! Disregard! Leexinfo (talk) 13:36, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I know that there's been extensive debate about the sentence that has been largely resolved with the specification of Lin being the first American of Chinese or Taiwanese descent removing any ambiguity, but if it's worth noting, there were other people from China who've played in the NBA long before Yao Ming. Like Tom Meschery (born in Harbin; of Russian descent) He was the first foreign-born NBA All-Star.[12] Clear Looking Glass But he's not ethnic Chinese. (talk) 02:47, 24 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

First of Chinese or Taiwanese decent?

Why not just say Taiwanese? Why add extra countries? It sounds confusing. 2402:7500:95B:BD85:11E:14F4:2419:F82 (talk) 17:18, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

See Talk:Jeremy Lin/FAQ#Q2.—Bagumba (talk) 13:44, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The night before his breakout game, he slept on the couch of teammate Landry Fields.

I have twice removed this piece of (I think self evidently) indiscriminate and non-noteworthy information. It's been put back twice. Am I missing something here? How is this not mere bloat? Friendly regards to all, Springnuts (talk) 19:33, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wife

@Bagumba：The reporter didn't ask Jeremy if his wife was Filipino-American, he was asked about his clothes, it was Jeremy Lin himself who mentioned that his wife was Filipino (我老婆是菲律賓的), and no one mentioned Filipino-American in the whole conversation.

Reporter：我們想要問一下書豪，就是你今天一身的裝扮，上面衣服，衣服上面寫了Manila，那可不可以跟我們講一下，你身上的這個服裝有什麼樣的故事，然後另外就是你有多期待，前往客場，菲律賓客場的比賽，謝謝。

Jeremy：我好朋友歌手，菲律賓的歌手AJ Rafael，這就是他的衣服品牌，我也覺得今天可以分享一下，我老婆是菲律賓的，所以我覺得，當然對我來說，是非常有意義的一件事。

I typed out the original text of the whole conversation, you can go to YT to find today's video and compare it yourself. 寒吉 (talk) 16:59, 29 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@寒吉: In the English translation of that Yahoo source, the title says "Jeremy Lin confirmed for the first time that his wife is of Filipino descent." In the article, it says "which confirmed the previous speculation that Mrs. Lin was Filipino-American." The article appears to be saying she is of Filipino descent, not that she's necessarily a citizen of the Phillipines. Having the Wikipedia article say "She is Filipino" is ambiguous and potentially misleading. —Bagumba (talk) 17:08, 29 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Bagumba：Jeremy Lin didn't "confirm" that, as I mentioned earlier, there was no mention of Filipino-American in the entire conversation, and it was scribbled by the reporters themselves. And Jeremy Lin answered 「我老婆是菲律賓的」, not 「我老婆是菲律賓人」, nor 「我老婆是菲律賓裔」, in Chinese 「菲律賓裔」(of Filipino descent) is just one of the meanings of 「菲律賓的」(Filipino). 「菲律賓的」 means the same as disambiguation page written, "Filipinos, people who are citizens of the Philippines or of Filipino descent". Jeremy Lin's answer today was ambiguous, if you think that such content is misleading, you can choose to remove it. 寒吉 (talk) 17:38, 29 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It seems you want to play it conservative regarding where she is American or not. We can wait to see if there are more sources or not. In the meantime, the open-ended "Filipino" is fine. Thanks. —Bagumba (talk) 17:47, 29 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Let's add the year of his NBA debut to the intro

I propose to turn "Lin was the first American of Chinese or Taiwanese descent..." into "In 2010, Lin became the first American of Chinese or Taiwanese descent..." Sound good? PRRfan (talk) 17:14, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's implied in the second paragraph. Too many "in <date>" sounds choppy and WP:PROSELINE-ish. —Bagumba (talk) 18:27, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Both good points, but as a reader, I was stopped dead by the lack of a date attached to this milestone. Literally, the next thing I wanted to know was: what year did that happen? It's also a bit weird that the lead paragraph tells us the year when he became the first Asian American player to win an NBA championship, but not the year he became the first American of Chinese or Taiwanese descent to play in the NBA. So how about this: we could add the year, better organize the last two sentences of the lead paragraph, and tighten them to boot if we said: "In 2010, Lin became the first American of Chinese or Taiwanese descent to play in the NBA. He remains one of the few Asian Americans to have played in the league, and the first to win an NBA championship, having done so with the Toronto Raptors in 2019." PRRfan (talk) 18:56, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]