Lin-sanity invades Phl

MANILA, Philippines - The Jeremy Lin phenomenon has been sweeping the basketball market ever since the sensational New York guard powered the Knicks to seven straight wins and averaged 26.8 points. 8.8 assists, 3.8 rebounds, and 1.8 steals.

Yahoo Sports reports that sales of Lin’s number 17 jersey are robust and the social media aggregation website Topsy says that over the past week, the first American-born NBA player of Chinese or Taiwanese descent has been mentioned more than 140K.

He even got a shout-out on Twitter from Phoenix Suns’ point guard and two-time NBA MVP Steve Nash.” Yahoo Sports estimates the brand worth of Lin to have been around US$14 million and growing.

But obviously, China, Taiwan, and the Philippines - the region’s three biggest basketball markets – have been the ones benefiting from the “Lin-sanity” phenomenon.

Proline Sports Center vice president Joven Babaan welcomes the development, saying the rise of `Lin-sanity’ in the NBA “benefits the country as a new Asian hero emerges in the post Yao Ming era in the NBA.

“Our sales of Spalding and NBA products are already reacting positively to the Jeremy Lin magic and we are optimistic that we are merely scratching the surface of his potential impact,” said Babaan.

Proline Sports Center is the exclusive distributor of Spalding products in the Philippines.