Jeremy Lin has had a roller coaster ride during his professional basketball journey, from cooking up the “Linsanity” craze in the NBA in 2012 to eventually bowing out of the CBA in China.
Now that journey has brought him to Taiwan, a stop that for the first NBA player of Taiwanese descent eventually seemed inevitable given his wide following in the country. Some might even say he is home.
His signing with the Kaohsiung 17LIVE Steelers in the P. LEAGUE+ was met with excitement and enthusiasm from fans who had been eager before Lin’s introductory press conference on Wednesday to find out when the 34-year-old guard would make his Taiwan debut.
Recently released photos from the team showed Lin lifting weights and shooting baskets, only adding to the buzz and anticipation of Lin competing against other P. LEAGUE+ stars, including his brother Joseph (???).
The Palo Alto, California-born Jeremy Lin has become a source of inspiration for young people of Asian descent who dream of becoming star hoopers despite having to fight labels and stereotypes of being geeky and unathletic.
Lin, whose parents are from Taiwan, grew up in a religious household, and he captained his high school team to the California Interscholastic Federation Division II state title.
As a senior, Jeremy Lin was named Northern California Division II player of the year, Northern California scholar athlete of the year, and first team all-state.
Lin then went to Harvard after none of his preferred destinations offered him a scholarship. Once there, he excelled on the court and graduated with an economics degree in 2010.
Undrafted after college, he was signed by the Golden State Warriors for the 2010-2011 season, but played sparingly behind Stephen Curry and Monta Ellis.
In the offseason, he was signed by the Houston Rockets, who waived him less than two weeks later, and he ended up with the New York Knicks.
Lin played only 55 minutes in the Knicks’ first 23 games and was even demoted to the D-League, where he played one game for the Erie Bayhawks.
Shortly after his return to the NBA club, however, things suddenly clicked in a truly improbable run that drew international attention.
Having lost 11 of their last 13 games, the Knicks gave Lin a chance off the bench on Feb. 4, 2012, and he propelled them to a 99-92 victory with 25 points and seven assists.
That was the start of the seven-game winning streak that sparked the “Linsanity” craze and helped him make Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People” of 2012.
Lin averaged 24.4 points and 9.1 assists a game during the streak, which reached its peak when Lin scored 38 points in a victory over the Los Angeles Lakers and Kobe Bryant and then sunk a stunning game-winning three-pointer against the Raptors with under a second left.
But the shine came off against the Miami Heat on Feb. 23. The Heat focused their defense on ruining Lin’s night by defending him the full length of the floor and setting double team traps, and Lin ended up shooting 1-11 and had eight turnovers.
Lin remained in the starting lineup as the Knicks lost six straight and then won five straight before injuring himself against the Detroit Pistons on March 24.
It was later determined he had a torn meniscus that was repaired surgically on March 31, but Lin’s time with the Knicks was over, and he never did recapture the Linsanity magic.
He would later go on to play for six NBA teams over the next eight seasons, and was with the Toronto Raptors when they won the NBA Championship in 2019.
Lin then went to China to play in the CBA for the Beijing Ducks in the 2019-2020 season, before agreeing the following season to play in the NBA G League, the NBA’s official minor league basketball organization, for the Santa Cruz Warriors.
It was during this time that an opponent called him “coronavirus” in the middle of a game, reflecting the climate of hostility towards Asians during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lin shared the incident on social media, expressing his concern about anti-Asian hate crimes and racism.
“We are tired of Asian American kids growing up and being asked where they’re REALLY from, of having our eyes mocked, of being objectified as exotic or being told we’re inherently unattractive,” Lin said on social media on Feb. 26, 2021.
“We are tired of the stereotypes in Hollywood affecting our psyche and limiting who we think we can be. We are tired of being invisible, of being mistaken for our colleague or told our struggles aren’t as real,” Lin said.
Lin then returned to China to play for the Ducks in the 2021-2022 season before signing with the CBA’s Guangzhou Loong Lions, but he played only seven games with the Guangzhou side before leaving the league.
His last game in the CBA was on Oct. 18, 2022, a 107-90 loss to the Liaoning Flying Leopards in which he scored four points in 10 minutes of playing time.
Speculation that Lin would play in Taiwan picked up, and on Jan. 26, Lin shared an Instagram post showing an image of him wearing a mockup of his new team’s jersey bearing his trademark No. 7, with the caption: “KaoHsiung, here I come!”
In a statement the same day, the Steelers confirmed that the 34-year-old guard had signed with the club.
How Lin will fare in Taiwan, especially with a team languishing at the bottom of the P.LEAGUE+ with a 2-16 record, and how long he will stay here is impossible to predict.
But through all of his ups and downs, this son of Taiwanese immigrants has remained popular in Taiwan, and he is now home.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel