J-Speaks: NBA Champion Speaks His Hard Truth

The average career for a huge fraction of professional athletes who get that one-in-a-million chance have a very short window of 4.5 years to make their mark. One Asian American who graduated from Harvard got that one in a million shot in the National Basketball Association (NBA), even though he went undrafted in 2010. He reached the pinnacle of pro sports when he was part of the Toronto Raptors who won the NBA title in June over the back-to-back defending champion Golden State Warriors, even though he hardly played. Unfortunately, he said in what was supposed to be a motivational speech to a packed room of his people turned into hard truth telling moment. 

While he was scheduled to give a motivational talk to a Christian audience in Taiwan, Asia on Monday, where his parents Lin Gie-Ming and Shirley Lin were born, current NBA free agent point guard of the NBA champion Toronto Raptors Jeremy Lin instead opened up about the current state of his NBA career which has him still on the free agent market. 

The Torrance, CA native who played collegiately at Harvard and nine years in the NBA  for the Golden State Warriors, New York Knicks, Houston Rockets, Los Angeles Lakers, Charlotte Hornets, Brooklyn Nets, and a brief stint with the Atlanta Hawks before landing with the Raptors last season said to those in attendance, courtesy of “The Waiting Game” on Good TV, “Man, it’s hard. Life is hard.” 

“In English there’s a saying and it says, ‘When you hit rock bottom the only way is up.’ But rock bottom just seems to keep getting more and more rock bottom for me.” 

Lin added, “Free agency been tough because I feel like in some ways the NBA has kind of given up on me.” 

“After the season I had to get ready for this Asian trip, and it’s the last thing I wanted to do. Because I knew for six weeks I would have to just put on a smile. I would have to talk about a championship that I don’t feel like I earned. I have to talk about a future that I don’t know if I want to have. And honestly, it’s embarrassing and it’s tough.”

“I always wanted to come back and be that image of triumph. Of God working miracles through me. When it seems like every year, I get on this stage I just talk about suffering.” 

At first hearing a very rare expression of real truth from Lin, the first thing that comes to mind is sadness and outright shock from a player who around this time a month ago was an NBA champion. While he did not play a great deal of minutes in the postseason for the Raptors, especially in The Finals, he was a part of something that many Hall of Famers like Karl Malone, John Stockton, Charles Barkley, Chris Mullin, Patrick Ewing and current NBA great players like Oklahoma City Thunder nine-time All-Star guard Chris Paul; Houston Rockets perennial All-Stars and the two recent Kia MVPs Russell Westbrook, James Harden and current Los Angeles Clippers swingman Paul George would trade in all their individual accolades for, an NBA championship ring. 

On top of that, Lin was has played nine seasons with as mentioned eight different NBA squads, while making close to $60 million in his career. He found a way to do that after stints with the likes of the Shenzhen Aviators, of the Chinese Basketball Association; the then Reno Bighorns, now the Stockton Kings and the Lakeland Magic, formerly the Erie BayHawks of the NBA G-League. 

“I wonder if it there’s more than just simply, ‘I can’t find a job in the NBA,’ because he had a career that’s longer than the average and probably had more highlights than most people would,” regular panelist on ESPN’s weekday show “Around the Horn” Bomani Jones said on the Monday afternoon edition of “High Noon.” 

It can be tough seeing your peers making $200-plus million and you have to wait around for a team’s front office to give you a call for even the opportunity for three-quarters of a fraction of that money before you waive goodbye to the professional sport of basketball. 

There have been players that do not make a fraction of that kind of money or had the kind of career that Lin has had. 

It is understandable that he wanted to walk into the continent of Asia, specifically in Taiwan as an Idol. 

Instead he walked into that rooms with hundreds of faithful Christians, especially young ones disappointed because he feels that he has not earned the right to be held in that high of regard. 

One big reason for that is at age 30 he feels that “The Association” has said during the peak of free agency at the start of July that teams were not inquiring about him signing with them.     

Lin might feel this moment is rock bottom for him, to others if they were in his shoes this would seem like a time to be taking a victory lap. To be patting yourself on the back or to simply be smelling the roses and enjoying the moment. 

“Jeremy Lin had a hell of a career,” longtime Washington Post sports columnist and host of ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption” Michael Wilbon said on Monday’s edition. “He played nine years.” 

“Here’s a guy who wasn’t expected to ever be in the NBA. Nine years. Averaged 11 [points] and four [assists]. He had about a month or two to himself. ‘Linsanity.’ I love Jeremy Lin. If it’s over, it’s over, but he can keep playing somewhere else and make money. But man, I feel bad for him feeling bad. I don’t understand.”  

Lin had the kind of career that is longer than the average and had more highlights then most people would. 

This is a man who for a two-month period back in the 2011-12 lockout shortened season put together stellar play out of nowhere with the New York Knicks that got him on the cover of Sports Illustrated twice. 

That run included a performance of 25 points, with seven assists and five rebounds, all career-highs at that time in a 99-92 Knicks victory versus the then crosstown rival New Jersey Nets and their All-Star floor general Deron Williams on Feb. 4, 2012. 

In the Knicks 92-85 win over future Hall of Famer Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers on Feb. 10, 2012 Lin scored a new career-high 38 points with seven assists. 

On Valentine’s Day of that season, Lin would break the hearts of the team he would eventually win a championship with by hitting the eventual game-winning three-pointer in the Knicks 90-87 win at the Raptors. 

It was this game where “Linsanity!” was born as then Lakers veteran forward Metta World Peace, also known as Ron Artest after watching the shot on television with his teammates ran past reporters shouting, “Linsanity! Linsanity!” as he waived hands above his head. 

While most players would take that run and become stars, Lin’s star eventually faded to black because like the other 29 teams they have good players and scouts as well, and Lin was eventually figured out. 

It also did not help that as over the next seven seasons he battled injuries and the fact he never reached level of being a legitimate starter, even though he was one for a season with the Rockets in 2012-13, where he averaged 13.4 points, 6.1 assists and 1.6 steals. He was always an understudy, but averaged double-figures in scoring. 

Those chances with other teams might not have come to fruition had it not been what Lin did in his time in New York. Even though it was a small sample of great play it allowed him to continue his dream of being in the NBA, even if as co-host of “High Noon” and ESPN.com columnist and writer for ESPN The Magazine Pablo S. Torre said fans tend to “pocket watch” him as this player who did not earn what he earned on the hardwood for nearly a decade in “The Association.” 

We as fans should not expect the stuff that makes any celebrity or person in the spotlight happy to make Lin happy. For Lin, it is not about the money it is about wanting the chance to compete at the highest level of basketball, which is not able to do since no team has not even given him a call to talk about signing him.

That is something that two of Lin’s former teammates with the Knicks in 10-time All-Star Carmelo Anthony and JR Smith, who are also unrestricted free agents want, and no one at the moment is burning up their phone lines to talk about signing them. 

“And so, for me when it comes to his happiness, we all should be aware that’s not what makes him happy,” Torre said about Lin. “What makes him happy is the very thing that Carmelo, JR and him all have in common, which is they want to play basketball and they can’t.”

While Lin may not feel he has earned the right of getting the praise and be the beacon of light to his people, he has without question been that beacon of light for not just the religious community he worships but he has been the beacon of light for all those “little engines” trying to make their mark. 

He not only overachieved as a basketball player, he has something in his favor that Anthony and Smith do not have, he can continue his career elsewhere like overseas where he played before and can earn the right in his mind be a so-called “God” to those he spoke in front of at the start of this week.  

Why? Because he is still young enough at age 30 to do so and in his mind, he still has a lot to prove. He still wants to play and if that opportunity is not going to come from “The Association.” 

The ability to compete is what Jeremy Line wants more than anything else. That opportunity may come in the NBA again or he may have to go overseas to continue that. 

Whether he plays another minute professionally on the basketball court or not, Jeremy Lin can look back on his basketball career if ends now or later and be proud of what he has accomplished in his NBA career. 

If there is one moment that should give him faith that his NBA career is not over is what took place back in the middle of February.  

When he was waived by the Hawks on Feb. 11, he was signed by the Raptors 48 hours after he cleared waivers. 

While he played only 27 minutes in the 2019 NBA Playoffs, which included in Game 3 at the Warriors, where he NBA journey began in the 2010-11 season, Lin became the first East Asian American and the first Harvard grad to play in the NBA Finals. 

Fellow “Pardon the Interruption” co-host and longtime sportswriter and columnist for the Washington Post Tony Kornheiser said of Lin to Wilbon “This is an undrafted kid out of Harvard, alright?” 

“He played nine full years in the NBA. He got a two-month period playing for the Knicks with ‘Linsanity!’ as you mentioned, where he was back-to-back covers on Sports Illustrated.”

“Whoever thought that Jeremy Lin would be in that situation? I understand that he feels he really didn’t earn a championship in Toronto because he didn’t play. Maybe he’ll play again, maybe he won’t. Jeremy Lin can look on a remarkable career,” Kornheiser said. 

Wilbon added, “I’ll bet you right now, if somebody can write this down Jeremy Lin gonna play for an NBA team this season.” 

“It won’t be great minutes. It will be great money for the rest of the world, not the NBA.”  

Information, statistics, and quotations are courtesy of 7/29/19 4 p.m. edition of “High Noon” on ESPN with Bomani Jones and Pablo S. Torre; 7/29/19 5:30 p.m. edition of “Pardon the Interruption” on ESPN with Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Lin.