As you might have heard, Jeremy Lin was recently in Salt Lake City to take in a screening at the Sundance Film Festival and play some basketball. As it happens, your favorite Rockets point guard also had a meeting with history: First Asian American basketball player meets Jeremy Lin in Utah.
Before Monday night's game against the Utah Jazz, Jeremy met with basketball pioneer Wat Misaka, the first Asian American player in the NBA. The former Ute broke professional basketball's color line when he was drafted by the New York Knicks in 1947. Turns out that Misaka, now 89, has been following Jeremy's career since he was playing at Harvard:
Wat Misaka has been following Lin's career for years. Last year, when Jeremy’s popularity blew up, Wat was getting calls from media outlets nationwide. So this was a meeting long in the making.Man, how awesome was this moment? I love that Wat Misaka has been a Jeremy fan since even before Linsanity. More here: Lin gets visit from Asian-American trailblazer Misaka.
"I've been looking forward to this for over a year," Misaka said.
Moments after the introduction, the 88 year old Ogden native laughed as he said, "Well, he's a lot bigger than I thought!"