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At last week’s Vegas Summer League, several top rookies showed their talent, most notably Kentucky standouts John Wall(notes) and DeMarcus Cousins(notes). But from the deep recesses of the Mavericks’ roster came another notable player: Jeremy Lin, an undrafted combo guard (but likely NBA point guard) from Harvard.

Lin impressed in Vegas with his solid all-around game and surprising athleticism and quickness. Since Summer League closed shop, he’s received offers from several teams, and now it appears that he will have something of a homecoming, as noted earlier on The Baseline. From Marc Stein of ESPN.com:

    Sources told ESPN.com on Tuesday that the Warriors, by offering to guarantee more than half of Lin’s potential first-year salary of nearly $500,000, have reached an agreement with the point guard from Harvard. Lin is expected to receive a multiyear deal, sources said. The deal has not been signed.

    Lin’s Bay Area roots and consistently strong performance with the Dallas Mavericks’ squad in Las Vegas prompted the Warriors to chase Lin hard and ultimately outbid a handful of teams that have been pursuing him since summer-league play ended Sunday.

Other teams pursuing Lin included the Lakers and Mavs, but as a lifelong Warriors fan, it’s no surprise that Lin chose the team that’s also guaranteeing him money.

This is a phenomenal story. Lin would be the first Asian-American athlete to play in the NBA and the first Harvard product in more than 50 years. In case you forget, Harvard doesn’t hand out scholarships, so Lin entered college with no publicity. He’s a real success story, someone who worked his way to the NBA when few believed he could do it.

Yet his story goes even deeper than that. At Palo Alto High School, Lin led his team to the 2006 state championship and defeated SoCal powerhouse Mater Dei (a team with no fewer than four high-level college prospects) virtually by himself. It was one of the biggest upsets in California basketball history and made Lin a Bay Area legend.

Still, his exploits weren’t enough to get him a scholarship. Lin wanted to go to Stanford and was accepted to the school as part of the normal admissions process, but the coaching staff only offered him the opportunity to walk on. (Two guards awarded scholarships during the same recruiting cycle accomplished very little for the Cardinal.) So he went to Harvard, where he had the chance to play early and often. He proved that he belonged quite quickly.

Lin is sure to be a fan favorite in Oakland, although that term might be a gross understatement. He’s already famous in the Bay Area, and the fact that he’s now the league’s first Asian-American should make him a media star. Monday night, local news treated the story of his pending NBA contract as if he were a little kid meeting the president, and that was before it was reported that he’d play for the Warriors. It’s easy to imagine his jersey becoming the team’s top-seller around the region, if not in areas with large Asian-American populations around the country.

You have probably noticed that this post doesn’t have much information on Lin as a basketball player, but there will be time for that discussion later. Right now, this is an event and celebration, not a mere signing.

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