When Houston Rockets point guard Jeremy Lin was studying at Harvard University, he probably never thought that his book smarts would be featured on a new ESPN SportsCenter commercial.
And yet, as of this week, Lin joins some pretty illustrious names in sports as the latest ESPN SportsCenter television ad featuring the Asian American superstar hits the airwaves.
Such spots are reserved typically for high-profile athletes in all sports, from the NBA to the NFL, NHL, Major League Baseball, UFC and even World Wrestling Entertainment, or WWE. Famous luminaries from each of those sports have been featured in several of those commercials through the years, including Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard, LeBron James, UFC fighter Georges St. Pierre, baseball stars Jorge Posada, Tim Lincecum, Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz, tennis star Maria Sharapova, the NFL’s Adrian Peterson, Olympic champion swimmer Michael Phelps and movie star/ex-WWE Superstar Stone Cold Steve Austin, among others.
Lin rose to fame last season after coming off the bench in New York to go on a highly-publicized scoring spree that made the Palo Alto, Calif., native an overnight star.
In the commercial, ESPN anchor Hannah Storm starts off by saying “The anchors here have always done their own writing. But when there’s someone from Harvard around, of course you’re going to let them help out.”
From there, Lin is seen in the next shot dictating script lines to “SportsCenter” anchor Jay Crawford.
“The trajectory metrics of the league’s best shooters apply to the terminal velocity of a jump ball, which is founded upon the temporal nature,” the Harvard grad dictated to Crawford over his shoulder, before pausing and noting “… you, uh, you misspelled ‘temporal.’”
On Twitter, Lin tweeted about his commercial on Monday, writing, "helping @jaycrawfordespn w/ trajectory metrics & interpolation RT@SportsCenter anchors take advantage of @JLin7 smarts."