Jeremy Lin: Stats vs. hype

>>> espn fired an editor for using a racial slur in a headline involving overnight nba sensation jeremy lin. take a look at the papers. nation's first player of chinese descent. they say king lin. he is even on the back pages too, doesn't happen often. there we are. on the front and back pages of the post and daily news. richard lui has been checking into his meteoric rise. lots of reasons they're watching him.

>> not only all the puns. over 300 division one colleges. not one wanted jeremy lin, except the ivy league and harvard. the gamble here, only a few harvard grads made the nba. the last in the 1950s , according to database basketball.com. unfortunately, that trend seemed to be playing out for lin. no team wanted him after graduation. then the break. the golden state warriors sign him, but cut him december 9th . the rockets then pick him up. but christmas eve , let him go. a week later, the knicks came knocking. but unsure of his contract, lin was couch surfing on that very couch. teammate landry fields taking him in. he crashed on that couch the night before he got the call to hit the paint. scored 25 points the next day, 28 two nights later on his first start. but he still was unsigned and could be released up to the february 10th deadline you see there. with three days left, he got the $788,000 deal. lin had only played 55 minutes in those first 23 games.

>> there were nights last year where i was just actually just reduced to tears, even the beginning of this year getting waived twice, you know, i was thinking if i don't have a team, what's going to happen.

>> 200 points in the first 8 starts is what happened. only four players have scored more, bernard king , shaquille o'neal, brandon jennings , and michael jordan . compared to scoring of other point guards in the first eight games, lin has done well as well. when you look at assists in addition to the points, putting that into context, there are only four players, only one player actually that had a greater average of 20 points, 7 assists. calvin murphy . you have to go back to 1970 and '71, the san diego