Since Jeremy Lin burst onto the scene for the New York Knicks on Feb. 8, sports fans have been captivated by his highly unlikely story of a Taiwanese-American Harvard graduate rising from relative obscurity to dominate on an NBA team. While Lin's story has been extraordinary, some, including boxer Floyd Mayweather, have questioned whether his exploits would get as much press if not for his ethnicity.
When people talk about Lin, how do they describe him?
In an effort to respond to this claim, we took a look at tweets from people mentioning Jeremy Lin to see on which aspects of this story of a Taiwanese-American underdog users were primarily focusing.
Surprisingly, despite all the coverage of his ethnicity and education, nearly two-thirds of users on Twitter refrain from mentioning any particular aspect of Lin that makes him unusual, aside from the fact that he has played exceptionally in his time in the starting line. This compares to less than a quarter of mentions that described him either as Asian, Chinese or Taiwanese.