Former New York Knicks and current Houston Rockets point guard Jeremy Lin will be striking poses and getting personal in the latest edition of GQ magazine.
The high-end fashion magazine features Lin on the cover of this month's edition-due out Oct. 23-and a one-on-one interview where Lin opens up on a number of different subjects, including his breakout year last season, what really led him to leave the Knicks for Houston, racism, his thoughts on President Obama, and whether he has any hard feelings towards New York.
When asked about the free agency saga during the summer that drove Lin-who emerged from the shadows of the Knicks bench and captivated a city and the world with the sensational stretch of play over 20-plus games that saved the Knicks' season-to sign a 4 year, $28 million deal with Houston, Lin implies that he was not inclined to test out the free market.
In fact, he at one point told GQ that he wanted to finish his career in New York.
"But the thing about it is, there was no other way to handle the situation. I didn't get an offer from the Knicks, so I had to go test my market," he tells the magazine.
Lin also opened up about the reality of being famous and trying to live a normal life-a reality that struck him when he went back to his family's Palo Alto, Calif., home in May, after the Heat eliminated the Knicks from the playoffs, and tried to play a simple pickup basketball game with his friends.
"At first I was like, 'This is gonna be fine,' " he says. "We played for a while, and it was cool. Then some people noticed us, and by the end of our first game, there's a crowd forming, everyone's taking pictures. We didn't even play a second game. I just walked home, like I always had, and they followed me. They all knew where I lived. I knew everything was going to be different, but I guess I never realized how different. I can't 'go home' and expect it to be, you know, home.