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Jeremy Lin is the first Asian American to enter the NBA in a long time. Exactly how long, I'm not sure, since the article only says that "He became the first Asian-American player signed by the Warriors since 1947." (What about the other 29 teams?)
Incidentally, if that 1947 date is correct, then the NBA actually had an Asian player before it had a black player (1950), which is . . . strange.
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=ap-warriors-lin
The guy can flat out ball.
Does Yao Ming not count, or are you just forgetting him? (serious question)
Although perhaps getting too technical, I'm not sure if Yao is a U.S. citizen and therefore he might not qualify as an "Asian American." I know he played with China in the Olympics, so he must be a Chinese citizen. I suppose it is possible for him to have dual citizenship but I find that unlikely between China and the U.S.
Instead he would probably be classified as an "Asian," for what that's worth.
According to wiki (I know, solid source) Yao was born/raised/still has citizenship in China and no mention of American citizenship at all. I have to admit that he was the first one I thought of (as well as that guy who played for the bucks) but I have to assume it's the american part that makes the difference.
Yao Ming is not an American. Neither are any of the other Asians who played in the league last season. Jeremy Lin has a chance to be the first Asian-American to play in the NBA in a long, long time.
This may seem like nitpicking, but think about it: while athletes from Asian countries (especially China, South Korea and Japan) are increasingly making a splash in international sports, Asian Americans thus far haven't really done so. It seems to parallel the phenomenon of Europeans being increasingly prominent in the NBA, while white American players are hardly making an impact (and their numbers in the NFL and MLB are also dropping). There seem to be some kind of sociological factors causing both white and Asian Americans to not participate in elite sports as much as you might expect.
Chances are they mean someone who was born here or was adopted at a very young age and has always lived in the US as opposed to emigrating only to play basketball.
Jeremy Lin gives hope to asian americans everywhere. Maybe I too can put up 30 points vs UConn someday. But for now, I have to go write some computer programs.
Kid played great against John Wall in the summer league, and looks looks like a good backup PG on a run-and-gun team.
From Wikipedia:
Wataru "Wat" Misaka (Japanese: 三阪 亙 Misaka Wataru) (born December 21, 1923) is a retired American basketball player. He was the first player of Asian descent and the first non-white person to play in the National Basketball Association (then known as the Basketball Association of America).
I caught one of his summer league games a couple weeks back and this kid was very impressive. He definitely had the crowd behind him and he showed some And 1-caliber moves (OHH BAYBEE)...
