The Kaohsiung Steelers have confirmed rumors that they are trying to recruit NBA star Jeremy Lin for next season, admitting they face challenges, but saying they are not giving up.
Steelers general manager Kenny Kao told the Central News Agency in an interview in Taipei this week that the Steelers are trying to enlist Lin, but face competition from other P.League+ clubs.
“If you have a great talent, you have someone that’s a legendary figure and likely the best Asian basketball player ever, and you don’t pursue that kind of talent, you’re not doing your job right,” Kao said.
Photo: AP
Lin rose to fame in 2012 as a member of the New York Knicks when, as the first American of Taiwanese descent to play in the NBA, he unexpectedly led the Knicks to a winning turnaround and inspired the “Linsanity” craze.
He has been a hot topic on the Internet with fans and media trying to guess his next move, as he has not yet been signed by any club in the Chinese Basketball Association, where he played last season for the Beijing Ducks.
Hence, fans and media have speculated that Lin might play in one of Taiwan’s professional leagues, just like his younger brother, Joseph Lin, who plays in the P.League+ for the Taipei Fubon Braves.
Commenting on such speculation, Kao said that every general manager of a club in the P.League+ is trying to enlist Jeremy Lin.
“If you ask any general manager of this league: ‘Are you trying to get Jeremy?’ If he says no, then there’s two possibilities — one possibility is he is lying, the second possibility is that he is going to get fired,” Kao said.
One of the challenges the Steelers face when competing with other teams for Jeremy Lin is the imbalance of resources between northern and southern Taiwan.
“The north maybe can say that it has more hipper things than we do, but that’s no reason to get upset and stop trying. So, like I said, if we don’t try for it, we are neglecting our fans’ wishes,” Kao said.
Apart from trying to recruit the former NBA sensation, Kao said that another goal he has is to build the right culture for the club, so Kaohsiung residents would identify with the club and be proud to tell people they are “Steelers fans.”
He hopes to achieve that by showing everyone the dedication of his staff and the passion of his players when competing with their hearts out on the court, he said.
“I think the fans will appreciate that and I hope they will appreciate the struggle too, because it’s not going to be an instant success. In basketball it’s hard to get instant success because everything is accumulative,” Kao said.
Echoing Kao, Steelers head coach Slavoljub Lale Gorunovic said that he has big expectations for next season.
“I hope next season will be much better than last season because we have more time for preparations and I hope our roster will be stronger,” the Serbian said.
The Steelers were one of two teams, the other being the Taoyuan Pilots, that did not advance into the playoffs last season. The Kaohsiung team finished fifth in the six-team league’s regular-season standings with a 9-20 record.
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