Jeremy Lin got candid with Yahoo! Sports in a sit-down interview this week, the famous Asian point guard of the Houston Rockets talking about the coaching change in New York, dealing with overnight fame, and being targeted because of his race.
Lin told Yahoo! Sports columnist Adrian Wojnarowski in a story published this week that he initially had a hard time dealing with the sudden fame that he experienced last season when he came off the bench for the New York Knicks to go on a scoring and assist tear that gave birth to the international phenomenon known as "Linsanity."
"I went into an absolute shell for a few months in New York," Lin told Yahoo! Sports. "I went through a phase when I didn't want to talk to anybody. I didn't want to talk to my friends. I didn't want to give anybody close to me a chance to mess up our relationship. I saw how publicity and fame changed certain people around me, and changed how people looked at me. And I hated it."
The sudden rise to fame brought strains on Lin's personal relationships, but also gave birth to a new one, as he found himself connecting with former Knicks coach-and now Los Angeles Lakers coach-Mike D'Antoni.
Under D'Antoni's "seven seconds or less" offense, which favors having the point guard run the floor, Lin had the chance to flourish, scoring as much as 22.5 points and 8.7 assists during his first 12 starts before the All-Star break last season.
"Like, the coach actually cared about what plays I enjoy running, or that the coach would text me on a day off to see how I was feeling. That type of stuff was too good to be true," Lin said of playing under D'Antoni.
That changed under new coach Mike Woodson, who took over late in the season, during which Lin's numbers dropped. "It changed," Lin said. "Different style, different coach."
After he signed a four-year, $29 million deal with Houston during the summer-which was never matched by the Knicks-Lin admitted that he was taken aback by the criticism he heard from fellow NBA players, coaches and others who ridiculed the Rockets for giving such a lucrative deal to Lin after only a 25-game season.
"He's a nice kid and a nice player," one NBA coach told the New York Daily News in July of Lin. "But the reaction to this in New York? Come on. I think they'll survive if and when the kid leaves."
Part of it, Lin suspected, had to do with his being of Asian decent.
"I was a little surprised, but I wasn't shocked. I honestly feel it's part of the underlying issue of race in American society ... of being an Asian-American," he said.
Because he is Asian, Lin elaborated, it has always played a factor into opposing players going at him a little extra harder, be it whether he was playing high school ball in Palo Alto, Calif., the Ivy League for Harvard University or in the NBA.
"I've always been a target," Lin said. "Everyone looks me and says, 'I'm not going to let that Asian kid embarrass me. I'm going to go at him.' That's how it's been my whole life. This has been different, though. Now, I was on the scouting report. People started to pay attention to what I could and couldn't do.
"But a target? I was used to that. I'm not saying I get everyone's best shot, but I would say people don't want to be embarrassed by me because of my skin color," he added.
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