Jeremy Lin of the New York Knicks and his teammate Amare Stoudemire react during the game against the Dallas Mavericks at Madison Square Garden on February 19, 2012 in New York City. [Source:Sina.com]

Explosion of success

Chinese analysts said that Lin's star had risen so fast that they couldn't put an accurate commercial value on it.

"We are collecting data about Lin right now, but his explosive rise has blindsided us," Qiang said.

"Linsanity" is even manifesting itself in China's underground sportswear market, and retailers and manufacturers of the so-called shanzhai are looking forward to take their share.

Wang Ke, who runs a tiny Beijing store selling unauthorized sportswear, said requests for Lin's uniform, T-shirt and other paraphernalia have grown in recent days. The requests come from young fans, male and female alike.

"I haven't had too many consumers looking for Chinese stars' products here, since Yao Ming's early retirement. Now it seems business is bouncing back all of a sudden," said the shopkeeper.

Wang said he expected to sell at least 50 uniforms each month. "I may put up advertisements," he said.

However, his store has to rely on suppliers to feed him with new products with Lin's name on them.

Manufacturers of these bootleg products have told Wang to wait while they obtain samples of the latest Lin products from official shops in New York and Taipei. When knock-off uniforms with Lin's name and number do become available, they'll probably cost 150 yuan ($23.85) to 200 yuan in Wang's shop.

Supply is also a problem for online vendors, whose businesses are much bigger than Wang's.

"Lin's uniform is already the best-seller in my online shop," said a vendor surnamed Chen, based in Guangzhou, who offers NBA players' uniforms on Taobao.com, China's largest online shopping website.

Chen got about 450 orders for Lin's uniform between Feb 11 and 5 pm on Monday. He charges 110 yuan.

Chen started to ship orders to his customers on Monday, more than one week after the orders came in, and some late buyers face another five days' wait.

Other goods from key rings to iPhone protective shells bearing Lin's image, name and number have become available as well, but the uniform is still the most popular item, according to sales volume data on Taobao.com.