Sports Illustrated doesn't stop the Linsanity

For the second week in a row, Jeremy Lin will grace the cover of Sports Illustrated— the first New York athlete to ever achieve that honor.

Joe Namath, Derek Jeter or Eli Manning never did it.

It's hard to believe all of all the phenomenal New York sports stars who join those three champions on that  list: Mantle, Reed, Gooden, Rivera, Messier, L.T. and Ewing.

Now comes Lin with two covers during his three week old legacy.

The story of the undrafted benchwarmer, bouncing around the NBA, sleeping on his brother's couch and waiting for his shot has been played out to almost exhaustion.

Now the overachieving and humble Lin has an apartment at the Trump Tower in White Plains and is planning on renting a place in Manhattan's ritzy W Hotel— just for home games.

There are even odds on who he will be dating.  By the way Kim Kardashian is still the odds-on-favorite at 4-1 with Jennifer Aniston pulling up the rear at 25-1.




The magazine had a cover shot of Lin slicing through the Los Angeles Lakers defense for a basket on their Feb. 20 issue.

Now, Lin is pictured fist-pumping on the Feb. 27 cover.

Linsanity hasn't been limited to the NBA and USA.  Lin's appeal has turned the sports world— literally the sports world— on its head.

Sports Illustrated reports that the Harvard-educated point guard is now more popular in China than the legendary seven-footer Yao Ming.

He even made the cover of Time magazine's China edition last week.

Lin is the first athlete to get back-to-back covers since Dirk Nowitzki did it last June.  The Dallas Mavericks forward went on to lead his team to the NBA title.

Many people claim there is a jinx associated with the SI cover and have blamed the prime spot on everything from causing injuries to ending win streaks and careers as well.

Only problem is, the Knicks seven game win streak— with Linsanity at a fever pitch— came to a screeching halt against lowly Hornets three days before his first cover.

Michael Jordan appeared on a record 49 covers and that didn't seem to damper his winning ways.

The underdog story is Linfectious so, as long as it continues, don't be too surprised to see the Knicks savior score an SI trifecta.