Former NBA star Jeremy Lin has signed with China’s Guangzhou Loong Lions after months of speculation that he might relocate to Taiwan.
“The journey continues! Still feel like a kid getting to live out my basketball dreams,” Lin wrote on Instagram on Monday, with photographs of him in the club’s jersey and T-shirt.
The signing means that the Taiwanese-American point guard is to play a third season in the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) after spending two seasons with the Beijing Ducks.
Photo: AFP
DUCKS PERFORMANCE
Lin’s performance with the Ducks declined in the 2021-2022 season, when he averaged 13.4 points, 3.6 rebounds and 4.7 assists, down from 22.3 points, 5.7 rebounds and 5.6 assists in the 2019-2020 season.
His floor time also shrank from an average of 32.1 minutes over 39 games to just 22 minutes over 23 games, and with Lin becoming a free agent this off-season, local fans wondered if the former NBA sensation might play professionally in Taiwan.
FAMOUS MOMENT
Lin hit the spotlight in February 2012 when he scored 38 points against the Los Angeles Lakers at Madison Square Garden, igniting an improbable run for the New York Knicks.
The son of Taiwanese immigrants, Lin has maintained his popularity in Taiwan since then, and the possibility of him playing in one of Taiwan’s two professional basketball leagues had general managers angling to get him on their teams.
The Kaohsiung Steelers of the P.League+ said that they wanted to enlist Lin for the P.League+’s 2022-2023 season, while the New Taipei Kings signed Lin’s younger brother Joseph Lin in what many speculated was designed to attract Jeremy Lin.
IN HIGH DEMAND
“If you ask any general manager in this league: ‘Are you trying to get Jeremy?’ and the answer is ‘no,’ then there are two possibilities. One is that he’s lying; the second is that he’s going to get fired,” Steelers general manager Kenny Kao said in July.
However, those hopes have now been dashed, with the CBA’s 2022-2023 season set to start on Oct. 10.
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