'Linsanity' Movie Trailer Released: Jeremy Lin's Story of Faith and Perseverance

Aug 27, 2013 07:38 AM EDT

The trailer for 'Linsanity' the movie, which documents the Cinderella-like career start of first Asian-American NBA basketball player Jeremy Lin, has been released on YouTube.

Linsanity the film has a consistent theme, which Lin describes, “God gives and takes away. God took what I really care about at that time, and showed me that I can’t accomplish what I want to without him, that nothing in this world will happen not according to His plan.”

While Linsanity the film debuted at Sundance in January and has made other festival debuts, the official release date is October 4th. The film director Evan Leong has followed Lin since his days at Palo Alto High School in the San Francisco Bay Area.

At the beginning of the trailer, Lin describes his experience on the court, “I felt like I was being controlled by something else. I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience. I still have to pinch myself to believe it.”

While addressing a group of kids at his summer basketball camp after his first NBA season, Lin declares, “God loves me, and that he has the perfect plan for me. His plan will take me through a lots of ups and downs, but if I stay faithful to him that in the end he will work everything for my good. Now when I play basketball, I don’t play for anyone else, I only play for God. That’s the type of purpose that he gave me, and once he gave me that purpose, is when I found my peace, and once I got my peace, that’s when I got my joy.”

Stephen Chen, Lin’s pastor from Mountain View Chinese Church in Christ, said in the trailer that Lin places “God first, family second, and basketball third. It’s more of a God is in all those things. But one time, Lin was standing at the door at the church, and he had tears in his eyes, because the pressure was really getting to him. He turned to me and says, ‘I don’t know if I can keep doing this.’” That was when Lin was playing for the Golden State Warriors.

In the film’s climactic voiceover, Jeremy say, “God did something supernatural to me ... Learning to fight to constantly live and play for God. And when I do that, I’ll walk on water.”

The film has already earned some glowing reviews, and it will release in select cities (Boston, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco, along with 10 to 15 other cities) on October 4.