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Alison Stewart: Nearly 11 years ago, groundbreaking Taiwanese American basketball player, Jeremy Lin, put on his Knicks uniform, stepped onto the court at Madison Square Garden, and scored 38 points against the Kobe Bryant-led Lakers. That game solidified Jeremy, a player who had struggled to find a foothold in the NBA, as a force, and gave rise to the term "Linsanity," which swept the nation in 2012, as Jeremy Lin helped the Knicks win game after game.

Asian American fans were thrilled to see an NBA star who looked like them being confident, bold, and brash, out on the court, in open defiance of stereotypes, but it was a bumpy road to this moment for Lin, who barely made it into the NBA, who was described early on as not being aggressive enough, and who dealt with all the racist limitations associated with being a "model minority." Jeremy Lin was the first Taiwanese American to play in the NBA, and the first Asian American to win an NBA championship.

The new documentary short, 38 at the Garden, tells the story of Linsanity, Jeremy Lin's time with the Knicks, and what his success has meant to the Asian American community, 38 at the Garden has been shortlisted for an Oscar nomination, you can watch it now on HBO Max. I'm joined now by Jeremy Lin. Hi, Jeremy.

Jeremy Lin: Hello, how are you?

Alison Stewart: I'm well, thanks. As well as director Frank Chi. Hi, Frank.

Frank Chi: Hey, how are you?

Alison Stewart: I'm great. Frank, why did you want to make this movie now?

Frank Chi: I made this movie-- It came from a conversation that I was having in 2020, with one of our producers, Travon Free, about impossible moments. What is a moment when society at large tells a group of people you can't do something, and somebody comes out of nowhere and shatters it to pieces? Our original reference point for what an impossible moment was, in that conversation, was Obama. That's objectively the biggest impossible moment any of us have lived through.

Travon asked me, "What other moments feel like that?" I was like, "Look, I'm Asian. The only thing that comes close is Linsanity." I said to him, that night, "Two most magical moments of my life-- The first is the night Obama was elected president. The second is the night Jeremy dropped 38 at the Garden," and Travon was like, "38 at the Garden. That's a movie." That was the birth of this conversation.

It's done very much in the context of what are society's assigned limitations to a certain group of people, in this case, Asian Americans, and all the stereotypes that we have to deal with. How did Jeremy come out of nowhere, in front of billions of people, in the world stage, to shatter them to pieces?

Alison Stewart: Jeremy, what did you think when you were first approached about this documentary? You're really a big part of it. This is not people talking just about you, you have to recount your life story in this film.

Jeremy Lin: Yes. At first, I wasn't really too keen on doing anything Linsanity related. I had pushed that off for many years, but I think-- First off, my team was pushing me just to take the call, and I tried not to take the call. I was like, "No, I'm good, I'm not going to," and after some time, Patricia's son, the CEO of my company, who runs all my stuff off the court, was like, "Just take the call." We took the call, and immediately, things clicked.

The one thing we were going to do, that Frank, Travon, and Samir were adamant about, was-- This wasn't just going to be about basketball. This wasn't just going to be about stats, or that one night, or the game. This was going to be about something much bigger. In 2020, and then, going into 2021, as the pandemic was coming around, we started seeing a lot of-- These aren't new issues within society. These are just manifestations of issues that already existed in society, but what was happening with anti-Asian hate, the uptick of violence--

That whole conversation, it needed to happen. That was the north star of this documentary. That's why we jumped on it, and they stayed true to it all the way through, and made an amazing film that talks about something much bigger than basketball, which is what we first hear when anybody watches it, they're just like, "By the end, you're not talking about basketball, you're not talking about any jump shot, or any matchup between two NBA teams. It goes far beyond basketball."

Alison Stewart: Frank, what was your original vision for the film?

Frank Chi: My original vision for the film, it really could be described without any basketball at all. We broke this down, and this is how we described the film to Jeremy when we first pitched it. Part one was going to be about stereotypes. Part two is what happens when someone shatters those stereotypes on the world stage. Part three is about today, when those stereotypes have been weaponized, and when they're weaponized, they turn into anti-Asian violence.

What Jeremy said earlier, about making sure that by the end of this movie we zoom out to the larger perspective, so that you're not thinking about anybody's story except for your own-- Really, if you've been through any stereotypes, you don't have to be Asian American, we've had so many incredible responses from people after screenings. People come up to us and they're like, "I watched your movie and I asked for a promotion," or, "I watch your movie, and I'm just thinking about every meeting I've ever been in."

Think about how heavy that is, for someone to say that. That just means that people think those set of stereotypes follow them into rooms. If you are different in America, you know exactly what set of stereotypes follow you into a room. We're all looking for our own Linsanity moment, which is the moment that we choose to take things into our own hands and break them. That's why Jeremy's story, this whole time, has meant the most to me.

That's why it means even more to me now, in the age where, suddenly, these stereotypes that I've been growing up with my whole life have been weaponized, and my life is a little more dangerous. If I walk down to the subway station to go home, I'm waiting in the middle of the subway station. I'm not waiting near the tracks. That didn't happen until COVID started. I think that's the reason why we came together and made this movie. We premiered on HBO in October, but we're in January now, and this conversation is still going.

Alison Stewart: Yes. To give people some perspective, Jeremy, you had this amazing high school run in Palo Alto. You went to State Championship, you were named California Player of the Year, you received no scholarship offers. There's this really telling moment in the film, and it's brief, but I think it really gets to what you both are talking about, when there's feedback about you from the pre-draft process.

The notes about you read, "Does not seem confident at all, passes on wide-open shots," and you were a young athlete, who had dominated. What did you think, Jeremy, when you first learned about those pre-draft notes?

Jeremy Lin: It's interesting, because one of the top ESPN writers was coming to watch one of my workouts, and this was going to be the biggest exposure that I could get for the draft. I remember he had talked to my agent, and all this stuff. We were expecting at least something semi-positive, then the article comes out and I'm like, "Wow." I just think what I felt right then was exactly what I felt in many different moments in my life, like it doesn't really matter what I'm doing.

They already have this box, and they're going to have confirmation bias, or anything that they feel is going to fit into that box. My mom has this great-- It's not a quote, but she would just always say like, "Watch me, Jeremy's mom. Every time, growing up, he would play well against a big player. They would never say Jeremy was good." After the game, they would say, "Oh, that other player wasn't as good as we thought he was." Hasan talks about it too, in the film.

There's this cap and you can't really get beyond that. When that article came up, I was pissed. I immediately called my agent and I was like, "Did he even watch the workout? Did he watch what I did?" I thought that was like-- Okay, maybe that'll be an isolated incident. Then as I went and did more and more workouts, I realized-- Man, no one's really willing to pull the trigger and just be like, "Man, we believe this guy's good."

Of course, what player coming out of college, what undrafted rookie is going to play perfect? No one's going to play perfect, but it's the fact that they would see something, or one or two possessions, then just latch onto it, and just say like, "This is who he is, and this is who he'll always be." That's what was really frustrating, versus everyone else, even the way they would write it would be like, "Oh, he struggles with this, but he's young and there's plenty of time to grow," or, "You can see the flashes of potential." There was no flashes in what anyone would see with me.

Alison Stewart: My guests are Jeremy Lin and director Frank Chi. We're talking about the documentary short, 38 at the Garden. It has been shortlisted for the Oscar. Jeremy, one person who said, "Yes--" Again, this is powerful, this one section really moved me in the film, was someone who had seen you play in high school, the new owner of the Golden State Warriors, and he judged you on your skill. What was meaningful to you about that moment, and how do you think it changed you? We know how it changed the trajectory of your career, but how did it affect you, personally?

Jeremy Lin: I think that's the thing. There are so many people who don't look the part, and when they have worked so hard, and when they are very qualified, the one thing they need is for one person to believe. They need one shot, one door, to not even be open all the way, just to be cracked open. That's why I'm forever grateful to Joe Lacob. I think coming out of college, going through that experience, and him opening that door, gave me the chance to just be in the arena with everybody else, and to have a fighter's chance.

Sometimes, it's all you need. When you're good enough, that's all you need. I remember, in year 11 of my career, I go to the NBA G League, and I'm trying to get an NBA contract. I'm a league leader in points, I'm a league leader in assists, I am number one in the league in shooting efficiency across the board. Everyone who was a league leader in points and assists got a contract, except for me. In that moment, that was actually-- It's interesting, because in the story, I didn't have any scholarship offers, but Harvard gave me a chance to go play there.

I was undrafted, but Dallas gave me a chance to get onto their Summer League team. I played really well in Summer League, and then Golden State gave me an opportunity. Even though there was so much doubt and stereotypes, I was always able to find one person, or one door, to get to the next level. The G League was the first time where I was so deserving, everybody knew I was deserving, the stats showed it objectively, it showed that everyone around me, who had anything similar or comparable, was getting contracts.

I didn't get that door open. When I experienced that for the first time, that's when it gave me even more appreciation for what happened 11 years ago, when Joe was like, "You know what, even though other people don't agree with me, I'm going to open the door for this guy." That's a powerful story, the fact that even after nine years in the NBA, I'm still trying to convince people, like, "No, I can still do this." That, again, goes to show in 2010, when I graduate from college, Joe really made a gutsy decision to let me in.

Alison Stewart: When my niece graduated from Dartmouth, I remember, I think it was the head of Teach For America, spoke at her graduation, and talked about the power of yes, and the idea that you all out there, in this audience, are going to probably be leaders at some point, and you need to use the power of yes to make a difference in the world. I think what I'm getting to, Frank, is that in the documentary, you have a chorus of voices of Asian American leaders in media.

Lisa Ling, Hasan Minhaj, who basically say Jeremy, in many ways, gave them the confidence to think about, "Yes," to think about pushing through that door when it cracks open a little bit. How did you get this group of people together? Who was on your list? What was the pitch to them to sit down and give you time?

Frank Chi: When we actually started this process, it was a really scrappy experience. Jeremy just talked about being underestimated. Our doc was underestimated. It got turned down by a lot of people, a lot of big places, with Jeremy attached. I think that says so much about the Asian American experience, is to be doubted, period, whether you're going to court, whether you're trying to make a movie, whether you're in the boardroom, whatever it is. We certainly experienced that in the beginning here.

When it came to who wanted to be interviewed, it was about who said, "Yes." It wasn't a choice. Our two producers for the movie, Travon Free and Samir Hernandez, Travon has a comedy background, and Samir has a sports background. Those two backgrounds are reflected in the movie's interviewees. Then, a lot of it were folks that Jeremy had talked to, who said, "Yes." When you think about the way this was made versus what Jeremy just said about his experience in the NBA, the common thread here is that somebody needs to give you a chance.

For us, when we started filming this process, we raised the initial amount of money through just individuals, to get all the interviews done and to get a rough cut. Then the person who said "Yes," to us, at that stage, was Bentley Weiner from HBO. She had been wanting to make a movie about Jeremy for a decade, at that point. When she first heard about the project, she first heard about our [unintelligible 00:15:39], she was super interested, and then she saw the rough cut.

That was the quickest "Yes," we got throughout this whole process. We couldn't be more grateful to HBO and the team there.

Alison Stewart: I want to play a clip from the film 38 at the Garden. It's one of the moments that meant a lot to fans around the country, the wave-off, at the very end of a tie game with the Toronto Raptors. Jeremy has the ball, he waves off his teammates, who are asking for the ball. Jeremy is like, "I'm going to do this, I got this." Let's listen to a moment from the film 38 at the Garden, about that wave-off, and then the actual call.

Jeremy Lin: All my friends kept saying, it was like, "Did you see the wave-off? Did you see the wave-off? Did you see the wave-off? Do you know what that means? Can you believe we have dignity? Do you see the way you did that?" No, no, no, it's my game too. I deserve to be here too. It's not a mean thing. It's not a I-hate-my-teammates thing. It's, "What if I had the same audacity and confidence you had?"

Speaker: Tied at 87. Lin with the ball in his hands. Fans on their feet. Five, four-- Lin for the win. Got it.

[crowd cheering]

Speaker 1: That's from the actual broadcast. Jeremy, what was going through your mind when you were waving off your teammates at that moment?

Jeremy Lin: We've talked about this multiple times, because the way that Hasan breaks it down, I'm like, "That's the most articulate way to break it down ever." In the moment, I wasn't thinking of that. In the moment, because I'm so immersed, and it's such a clutch situation, I don't have time for logic, I don't have time for inhibitions, I don't have time for anything other than instinct. I think that's why, in the moment, my body just knew the best chance that I had was for me to play one-on-one, and to not involve anybody else.

Not to give them a chance to double-team me, not to give them a chance to hard-edge on me, or to trap me, but to go and take this game into my own hands. In all honesty, to be open is not something that I have always done in the past, nor is it something that I have done even after that moment, but there have been many times when I should have continued to wave people off, and I didn't. I think what was powerful about that moment was that I did, and that the people around me eventually listened and were okay with it.

I think that is the barrier for many minorities, or people who don't look the part, is to even have the audacity to try and wave other people off. That doesn't even really happen nearly as much as it should. I think the reason why that that buzzer-beater was so amazing is because the first thing I do is, I look at my coach, I tell him, like, "I'm going to go one-on-one, I'm not running to pick and roll." He's like, "Go ahead." Then I look at my teammates, and I'm like, "I'm not running to pick and roll, I'm going one-on-one."

I had to do it multiple times, but at the end, they were like, "We got you, we'll be underneath the rim. We're ready for a rebound if it doesn't go in." I think that just goes to show we got to take our shot. When it comes, and we know, we got to take those shots. If it involves waving people off, we got to do that too, and we shouldn't feel bad for that.

Alison Stewart: Production question, Frank. 38 at the Garden, it's 38 minutes long, the film. Coincidence?

Frank Chi: [laughs] Well, we knew we wanted to make it a short, because we wanted it to be more than a movie. We wanted it to be a message. Unfortunately, people don't pay much attention to Asian American stories in this country, especially if they're true. That's the mindset that we went into this, so we wanted it to be a short. Now, we did not plan it to be 38 minutes, but when we got close to the end, when we saw that it was there for us, we were like, "All right we're just going to hit it for the culture."

It turned out to be the perfect length, in many ways. We've had a lot of college professors come up to us and they say, "Hey, you made my life easier for me. They got 40 minutes of the movie, then 20 minutes of Q&A, and then the class is over." To hear that, and to see the way our screenings have gone, it's not like a two-hour movie and then by the end of the movie, people can't wait to leave, no matter how good it is. It's a 38-minute movie that people are captivated by it at the end.

Oftentimes, when we do our screenings, we have a Q&A afterwards, and the takeaways that people have from those screenings-- We couldn't ask for more. I wanted to go back to a bit of what Jeremy was saying about that wave-off moment at Toronto. I've had two comments from people who talk about that moment to me after watching the movie. The first is-- I get a lot of comments from Asian people being, " Look, I love that moment because it shows us winning. It doesn't show just us being included. It shows that we get to win."

The second comment that I get a lot is, "Sometimes I don't even care that Jeremy made the shot. I almost would love to know what it would feel if he didn't, because the point is that he took it." The point is that, when you see the right opportunity, you got to take your shot. That's something that's not afforded to a lot of people of color in this country. For Asian Americans, in the specific context that we're describing it, in this movie, it is especially important.

To have that moment be illustrated the way that Jeremy does it, and in such dramatic fashion, we've put this in front of so many kids. I don't think I'll be honest with you that wasn't our original audience. We thought that this was in many ways going to be seen as a millennial nostalgia movie. The way children, especially young Asian American kids, who are younger than 10,-

Alison Stewart: I'm sure.

Frank Chi: -who weren't alive when Jeremy did this. That experience has been the most overwhelming through this whole process, because it is the greatest example we could put in front of these kids, who are being sent to school with double masks and they're afraid to be called Kung Flu, or China virus. Jeremy's example is that anything is possible. If you feel bullied, if you feel you don't belong, you can watch 38 At The Garden, you can watch what Jeremy did, and have that reminder that you can do whatever you want.

Alison Stewart: We do get to know a little bit about you, Jeremy, in the film. First of all, you played piano, and then your mom said you could stop so you could play basketball. Do you still play? Do you ever think about taking it up again?

Jeremy Lin: It's funny, because in my third year in the NBA, when I was at the Rockets, right after Linsanity, I actually went and bought a piano. Just so I could learn and play a little bit. Growing up, I played for five or six years, but every year when the annual recital came around, I was always playing the same song, because I hadn't gotten better. They put you in order of the difficulty of your song. I'm always number 1 or 2 in the recital, and keep in mind, I'm getting taller, I'm getting bigger.

At this point, I'm going up next to 6 years olds, when I'm 11. It's extremely embarrassing, but that was my experience in piano. Then I was like, "I want to try to get back into it. Maybe there's something I left on the table here," and I ended up buying a piano. I hardly used it, didn't get much better. The next team that I went to, I got another one. Then the next team after that, I got another one. I ended up getting 3 pianos, and I did not make any progress. I was like "You know what? I'm officially retiring this thing."

Alison Stewart: Jeremy, what are you doing next? New Yorkers will be mad at me if I don't ask that.

Jeremy Lin: I'm going to continue playing. I don't know how much longer, but it won't be that much longer. After that, I think there's a lot of things that I'm working on, off the court. I can't get into all of it, but if I could just give you an elevator pitch, it would basically be-- What I want to do down the road is to redefine the concept of love. That can be within the investing world. That could be in the nonprofit sector. That could be through basketball, but this concept of redefining love is something that's-- I have a lot of passion [unintelligible 00:25:00].

Alison Stewart: The name of the film is 38 at the Garden. You can watch it on HBO Max. Now, my guests have been Jeremy Lin and Director Frank Chi. Thanks for your time today.

Frank Chi: Thanks, Alison.

Jeremy Lin: Appreciate it. Thanks.

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