Before there was James Harden, there was Jeremy Lin. Remember that. Lin himself sure does.
While at the “Dream Big, Be Yourself” youth conference in Taipei, Taiwan, Lin admitted that he believed he was going to be tasked with saving the Houston Rockets, according to The Gospel Herald’s Lauren Leigh Noske:
I was ready to invigorate the entire city of Houston … I was supposed to save Houston basketball.
I became so obsessed with becoming a great basketball player … trying to be Linsanity, being this phenomenon that took the NBA by storm. The coaches were losing faith in me, basketball fans were making fun of me.
I was supposed to be joyful and free, but what I experienced was the opposite – I had no joy, and I felt no freedom.
There’s no question that life after Linsanity had to be difficult for Lin. Suddenly he went from being this player no one believed would amount to anything, to being a potential star in the eyes of the public. Making such a transition can’t be easy.
And it’s understandable that he believed the Rockets were turning to him in hopes he would carry the franchise back toward prominence. Following the season he previously had, and plagued by the abrupt standard everyone was holding him to, it had to mess with his head.
Not that his ego ballooned to the size of Kobe Bryant’s (maybe it did). Instead, the pressure may have gotten to him, impacted his ability to think clearly. I know that if it were me, I’d struggle to grasp the concept of what was happening. Graduating from Harvard, Lin was (probably) smart enough to have a better hold on his rising fame than most of us, of course. Then again, his name took on a life of its own. Not even the most intellectual of minds could have predicted and subsequently prevented the repercussions of his claim to fame.
Had Lin, and those who held him to such ridiculous expectations been thinking clearly last summer, they would have realized he wasn’t going to “save” the Rockets. Not just because they weren’t the Charlotte Bobcats in that they needed a rescuer, but because Lin was technically entering his first full season as a key member of an NBA team.
Following his wild ride with the New York Knicks, that notion was lost on many. Or at least, I assume it was. Why else would a large portion of the Association’s fanbase expect Lin to bear the cross of an entire franchise, less than a year after bursting onto the set?
Think about how crazed the scene in Houston would have been had Daryl Morey never traded for Harden. It’s scary; really scary. Lin’s struggles sparked a circus anyway, but it would have been a 100 times worse if the Rockets’ blueprint didn’t change just in time for the start of the season. The level at which he was expected to perform at would’ve been even higher; the mass pressure would have been even more overwhelming.
Yikes.
That can all change now, thanks to Harden’s arrival and the clarity Lin has gleaned more than a year removed from Linsanity. To an extent, he’ll always be under the microscope because of how he got here, but the hysteria has mercifully subsided.
Finally, he can focus on basketball and becoming the player he needs to be.
Dan Favale is a firm believer in the three-pointer as well as the notion that defense doesn’t always win championships. His musings can be found at Bleacherreport.com in addition to TheHoopDoctors.com. Follow @danfavale on Twitter for his latest posts and all things NBA.
