Jeremy Lin Found Someone in Brooklyn to Braid His Hair

The responsibility on this team will fall on Lin and Lopez.

The New York Knicks were on the road at some point during the 2011-12 season and, as Kenny Atkinson remembers it, a fringe National Basketball Association player named Jeremy Lin was getting torched during a 3-on-3 practice game…by another assistant coach. But personally, he just wants to be plain “Jeremy Lin” – nothing more and nothing less.

Atkinson and Lin are far past Linsanity now, reunited with the Brooklyn Nets, this time as first-year head coach and unequivocal No. 1 point guard/team leader.

While Lin wants to prove he’s more than just Linsanity, he’s not trying to forget about it – or express a lack of appreciation. I feel like that’s kind of how this is.

Of the five returnees (Brook Lopez, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, Bojan Bogdanovic, Chris McCullough and Sean Kilpatrick) from a season ago, only Lopez is a sure bet to start on opening night.

Atkinson gives Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni credit for always believing in Lin and having an affinity for him as a player, “but I think people would be lying to you if they said this was a guy that was about to explode”. His job is to get other guys shots.

Wednesday, at his introductory news conference with the Nets, he fondly recalled some of his memories of that time – including the game against the Lakers in which he scored a career-high 38 points.

In an interview with ESPN, Jeremy Lin bares that he doesn’t mind being a role model but doesn’t consider himself as a phenomenon.

Aside from signing free-agent point guard Jeremy Lin to a three-year, $38 million deal earlier in July, new general manager Sean Marks’s wildest off-season ambitions centered around restricted free-agent shooting guards Allen Crabbe and Tyler Johnson, a pair with only 24 National Basketball Association starts between them. “But this will be a little bit more Atlanta-San Antonio style, a little bit more touches from other guys”.

That certainly won’t happen overnight. On becoming a starter with a significant role Lin said: “Now I have that chance to take a much bigger role and be a much bigger part”. Lin compared signing with Brooklyn to investing in a start-up company. “If you look at what is going on in the world and a lot of the violence that is going in the world in terms of the justice system and all these different things – that is real life”, Lin said. That is a big part of it, you’re kind of betting on the founder a lot of times.

The Nets didn’t sign Lin because they were hoping to recapture that magic. You’re betting on what that person is capable of doing, because sometimes as you go through the process, the final product is going to change a lot. I’m betting on Kenny [Atkinson]. I’m betting on certain people.