Bend , Oregon ( CNN ) -- Far from the glamour of Madison Square Garden , aboard a FedEx delivery truck in this small Oregon town , sits the one man who saw Jeremy Lin coming . `` I 've always had a mind for numbers , the statistical side of sports , '' Ed Weiland explained . He spends his days as a driver for FedEx , but once he punches out , he goes to work at his true passion : finding the best college basketball players in the country . He publishes his assessments on the sports blog hoopsanalyst.com . In 2010 , he chose Harvard senior Lin as his top point guard prospect , when no one else was paying much attention to the Ivy Leaguer . Weiland never even saw Lin play , basing his assessment solely on stats . Read Weiland 's 2010 prediction . He breaks out every possible statistic when analyzing a player . He keeps all the information in an elaborate spreadsheet on an old Toshiba laptop in his modest apartment . Weiland said Lin caught his eye because of his high two-point field goal percentage and his ability to rebound , steal and block . `` If you can do that at a high level in college , it probably means you are a dominant player , '' he said . `` How often your team wins depends on putting it in [ the basket ] the most efficiently , and that 's what the two-point percentage is a measure of . '' Weiland found it intriguing that no one else seemed to be paying attention to Lin . `` I look for underdogs , but the player has to be good . I wo n't specifically say I 'm going to find myself an underdog , because Jeremy Lins do n't happen every year , '' Weiland explained . `` But when they do , you want to be ready to say , 'This is a guy we should look at . ' `` Outside of the online world of `` stat heads , '' as amateur analysts call themselves , no one paid much attention to Weiland 's 2010 assessment . Lin was n't even picked in the NBA draft . He played briefly for the Golden State Warriors and Houston Rockets , but he was cut from both teams without making much of an impact before being picked up by the New York Knicks in late 2011 . Opinion : Linsanity vs. Tebowmania . As Lin bounced around the league , Weiland monitored his progress . `` I kind of kept an eye on him . That 's what I do with players like that , '' he said . Then one morning in early February , he went online to check some NBA scores and he saw a headline that read `` Linsanity . '' He knew his prospect was taking off . A victory over Kobe Bryant and the LA Lakers kicked Linsanity into high gear . `` After the Lakers game , the original article I wrote went viral , '' he said . Articles in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times have fueled interest in Weiland . His phone has n't stopped ringing with reporters from across the country . FedEx is giving him time off to handle news requests . `` When I led the 2010 preview off with Jeremy Lin , the idea was that if and when he broke out , there might be some notoriety there , '' he said . `` I obviously never expected anything like this for him or for me . '' It 's all a bit much for a 51-year-old vegan who tries to live a simple small-town life . `` I 'm having fun with it . I 'm trying to be careful to be the same guy I 've always been , because I did like that guy , and I want to continue to be that guy , '' he said . Weiland sees himself as an underdog in the world of sports analysis , just like Lin is an underdog in the NBA . He has never been in contact with Lin but would like to meet him one day . Until then , he has a message for the young basketball star as he makes his way through the `` Linsanity '' that surrounds him : . `` Just keep playing the way you 've been playing . ''
FedEx truck driver Ed Weiland predicted Jeremy Lin 's success two years ago . Weiland , an amateur sports statistician , chose Lin as the top point guard prospect in 2010 . He never watched Lin play , assessing him only on statistics . His prediction was ignored in 2010 ; today , Weiland is getting massive media attention .