Jeremy Lin is a long way from Linsanity. As a matter of fact, he’s sounding a lot closer to the end of his NBA career than its peak.
The 30-year-old, who was once a phenomenon with the Knicks, and later had two injury-riddled seasons across the East River with the Nets, is coming to grips with his athletic mortality. Or at least he’s trying to, saying over the weekend that the NBA has “given up” on him.
“Every year it gets harder. In English, there’s a saying: Once you hit rock bottom, the only way is up. But … rock bottom just seems to getting more and more rock bottom for me,” Lin said during a tear-filled speech in Taiwan for GOOD TV, a Christian outlet. “And so free agency has been tough because I feel like the NBA has kind of given up on me. And I always knew that if I gave anybody a reason to doubt that they would.”
Lin was at his peak during Linsanity in February and March of 2012. He averaged 14.6 points over 35 games for the Knicks in that 2011-12 season. But he has bounced around with eight different NBA teams in nine career seasons, and increasingly looks like he could be on his last legs in the league.
After signing a three-year, $36 million deal with the Nets in 2016, hamstring woes limited him to just 36 games the first season and he suffered a season-ending ruptured patella on opening night the next year.
A day after telling The Post last summer that he hadn’t heard anything from the Nets about being traded and that he didn’t anticipate a move, Lin got shipped to Atlanta. He played 51 games for the rebuilding Hawks, but started just one and clearly wasn’t at his best physically. He eventually was bought out and waived in January.
“After Linsanity there was a lot of tough things that happened in Houston and [Los Angeles], and a lot of details that the public doesn’t know,” Lin said. “But I finally got that opportunity in Brooklyn. And again, it goes back to my ultimate dream: I had a chance to be the player I thought I could be.
“I had one year of injury, two years of injury, and this was in the middle of my prime. Then last summer, out of nowhere, a trade. And I got traded to the worst team in the Eastern Conference. And that’s a tough place, because they’re rebuilding. And if you’re not young, you don’t really fit in. And in the basketball world, I’m really old.”
Lin looked it, both in Atlanta and then after getting picked up by Toronto. He did win an NBA title with the Raptors, but he started just three games and averaged a mere 3.4 minutes in eight playoff appearances.
“After the season I had to get ready for this Asia trip. And it was the last thing I wanted to do, because I knew for six weeks I would have to just put on a smile,” Lin said. “I would have to talk about a championship that I don’t feel like I really earned. I would have to talk about a [basketball] future I don’t know if I want to have. And honestly, it’s just embarrassing. It’s tough.”
As far as that future, it could take him abroad. According to world basketball website Sportando, Lin is the top priority for point guard-starved CSKA Moscow, which has given him an offer. The reigning EuroLeague champions were once owned by current Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov.
“Nowadays I spend more time thinking about quitting,” Lin admitted. “I always tell myself if I have a son I don’t want him to make the NBA. You don’t have to deal with fame, you don’t have to deal with living your life and having all your failures on display to the world.”
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