The 2011 NBA lockout was the fourth in the league’s history and nearly cost the league the 2011 – 12 season. As it was, the 161-day work stoppage began on July 1, 2011, and ended on December 8, 2011. The lockout delayed the start of the regular season from November 1 to Christmas Day and reduced the regular season from 82 to 66 games.
During the lockout, Jeremy could not step inside the Warriors’ gleaming training facility in downtown Oakland. Nor was he allowed any contact with the coaches, trainers, or staff. It was up to Jeremy to stay in shape, but he didn’t lack in motivation and determination. He worked harder than ever to be ready when the NBA started up again.
His schedule was Navy SEAL Team 6 material:
• 10:00 to 11:00 a.m.: agility training
• 11:00 a.m. to noon: weight training
• 1:00 to 2:00 p.m.: shooting work with a private coach
• 2:00 to 4:00 p.m.: individual work17
He posted YouTube videos of his maniacal workouts on the court and in the weight room with trainer Phil Wagner. He got results. He nearly tripled the number of pull-ups (from 12 to 30), more than doubled the weight he could squat (from 110 pounds to 231 pounds), added 12 pounds of muscle to his 200-pound frame, and boosted his vertical leap by 3.5 inches.
He also worked on a hitch in his shooting form that dated back to eighth grade. Doc Scheppler, the girls basketball coach at Pinewood High School in Los Altos Hills, noticed that he brought the ball too far behind his head, which hurt his rhythm on his release. Scheppler taught him how to “load” his shot earlier and release the ball in rhythm at the apex of his jump. They practiced 90 minutes a day, 3 to 4 times a week, taking 500 to 600 shots each session.
“That’s the lesson here,” Scheppler said. “If you don’t like the way things are going for you in a sport, don’t cry about it. Don’t whine to the coach. Do something about it.”18 In the process, Jeremy reinvented himself, shot by shot and pound by pound.
Meanwhile, he kept an eye on the latest news of the contract negotiations between the NBA owners and the players’ union. As each “deadline” passed without an agreement, both sides inched closer to the unthinkable — the cancellation of the entire season.
At the eleventh hour, an agreement was reached on November 25, 2011. NBA commissioner David Stern announced that the first practice would be Friday, December 9, with the season officially beginning on Christmas Day.
Jeremy arrived at the Oakland facility for the first day of practice and suited up. He had just met his new coach, Mark Jackson, who had never seen him play. Undoubtedly, Jeremy felt mounting pressure to prove himself all over again.
He was loosening up when he was told that general manager Larry Riley wanted to see him. The Warriors hadn’t even started their layup drills.
If you’ve seen the Brad Pitt movie Moneyball, you know it’s never good news when the GM asks to see you. This occasion was no exception.
Jeremy, the Warriors organization has decided to put you on waivers. We think you’ll clear the waiver wire so that we’ll get you back.
No matter how much perfume Riley sprayed into the air, the pronouncement stunk. Jeremy was being let go, cut from the team, categorically released. For all he knew, his short-lived NBA career was over.
This is where the “business” side of professional basketball can turn a player’s dream into a nightmare in a heartbeat. What happened was that the Golden State management made a calculated decision to go after Los Angeles Clipper center DeAndre Jordan, a restricted free agent, to shore up a big hole in the low post. But to make Jordan an offer he couldn’t refuse, the Warriors had to create room under their salary cap. That meant moving a few pieces around the chessboard: cut Jeremy loose, use their amnesty clause on veteran guard Charlie Bell, and delay the signing of two rookies they liked — Klay Thompson and Jeremy Tyler. Then, under salary cap rules, the team would have enough money to bring in the center they desperately needed.
Once Jordan was signed, sealed, and delivered, the Warriors could bring Jeremy back — if no other team claimed him.
On the same day — December 9 — something important to Jeremy’s story was happening in New York. The Knicks waived veteran point guard Chauncey Billups and signed center Tyson Chandler, leaving the team out of cap space and without a true point guard.
Three days later, the Houston Rockets picked up Jeremy, so he couldn’t go back to his childhood team. To add insult to injury, Clippers owner Donald Sterling — a notorious skinflint — matched Golden State’s overly generous four-year, $43 million offer for DeAndre Jordan, which meant the bruising center was staying in Los Angeles.
Talk about collateral damage. Golden State’s gamble had blown up in their faces, and Jeremy was starting all over in Houston with a new team.
Jeremy arrived in Space City to discover he would have to take a number and wait his turn to make an impression on the coaches. The Rockets were overstocked with point guards, and Jeremy had a hard time getting reps in practice. In two preseason games with the Rockets, he got on the floor for a total of just under 8 minutes.
“At the time, I was thinking if this doesn’t work out, I maybe needed to take a break from basketball,” Jeremy told Marcus Thompson II of the Silicon Valley Mercury News. “I put in four months of training. I felt like I worked harder than anyone else. And now I was fighting for a chance to practice. I was questioning everything.”19
Then, on Christmas Eve, Jeremy woke up to find a lump of coal under his tree: he was being waived — let go — by Houston. This time, general manager Daryl Morey was the bearer of bad news, and he didn’t salve the wound by saying that he hoped Jeremy would be back. His explanation was that the Rockets needed cap room to sign Haitian center Samuel Dalembert.
Merry Christmas, kid. Best of luck to you.
This could have been the end of the line. Yet Jeremy knew that faith is “confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1), and this latest zigzag was not the time to doubt that God was still in control. It was the time to double down on his commitment to the Lord.
“Lin headed back to the Bay Area defeated, but with a renewed purpose. He gave up trying to control everything,” Thompson wrote. “He tried to stop worrying.”
The day after Christmas, Jeremy woke up at his parents’ place and did a devotional before heading to the gym to stay in shape. During his shootaround, each time anxiety about the future crept in, he whispered Romans 8:28 to himself: “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
Something good was about to happen — he was sure of it. But Jeremy had no idea that more trials were ahead of him.
New York, New York
The New York Knicks had a guard problem.
When the lockout was over, the club signed thirty-two-year-old Baron Davis to be their point guard, even though he had a back injury that would keep him out until late February. Until Davis could join the team, the Knicks would forge ahead with veteran guards Mike Bibby and Toney Douglas at point and Iman Shumpert as a shooting guard. Bill Walker (six foot six) and Landry Fields (six foot seven) were small forwards who could play in the backcourt too.
Then in the Christmas Day season opener against the Boston Celtics, Iman Shumpert got tangled up in the low post and injured his right knee. After the game, the team medical staff called the injury a sprained medial collateral ligament and said Shumpert would need two to four weeks to heal.
The Knicks were down to two guards.
John Gabriel, the director of pro scouting and free agency for the Knicks, said that every team looking for a point guard has a certain player in mind. “You want somebody who has good size. He can make the open shot and is getting better on defense. Leadership was looking for someone who would be good at running Mike’s system,” he told me, referring to head coach Mike D’Antoni. “That includes making shots, running the floor, being able to push the ball during transition, as well as defend. Those were desired key attributes.”
Paging Magic Johnson.
Unfortunately, Magic wasn’t available, and neither was Michael Jordan or Oscar Robertson. Knicks’ interim general manager Glen Grunwald and his assistant GM Allan Houston searched the waiver wire for who was available — and Jeremy Lin’s name was there.
Actually, Jeremy wasn’t an unknown entity to the Knicks’ front office staff. He had been on the Knicks’ radar for some time after he made some noise at Harvard.
“We liked him,” Grunwald said. “We worked him out in the draft. We had discussions with Golden State when he was there. It was just an opportunity to acquire him when we needed someone who had his skill set.”20
What the Knicks’ brain trust saw in the video breakdown of Jeremy was more athleticism than they thought. He was a good decision maker on when to go and not to go. He was worth the risk.
On December 27, the team claimed Jeremy off of waivers to fill a void at backup point guard, prompting Knicks’ head coach Mike D’Antoni to say, “Yeah, we picked up Jeremy Lin off of waivers [as] a backup point [guard] in case. We’ve always liked him as a player, so we’ll see where we go with it.”
Reaction among the New York media was a bit muted. “The Knicks offense didn’t get a huge boost Tuesday, but their collective GPA sure did,” sniffed New York Daily News beat writer Sean Brennan, referring to the new Ivy Leaguer in their midst.21
Jeremy didn’t see it that way. He updated his Twitter account with this message: “Thankful to God for the opportunity to be a New York Knick!! Time to find my winter coats from college lol!”
He was back in the NBA, but his contract wasn’t guaranteed until February 10. Up until that date, he could be cut any day, so there was no reason to shop for a Fifth Avenue penthouse.
Fortunately, by this time his big brother Josh was living in Manhattan, attending New York University as a dental student. Josh and his wife, Patricia, had set up housekeeping in a one-bedroom apartment on the Lower East Side, so if Jeremy didn’t mind sleeping on the couch …
In those early days, he had to do some fast-talking each time he approached the player entrance before home games. “Everytime i try to get into Madison Square Garden, the security guards ask me if im a trainer LOL,” he tweeted.22
The Rising Tide of Social Media
Since he’s a millennial who grew up in Silicon Valley with parents in high-tech jobs in the computer industry, Jeremy has likely been an early adopter of technology. He’s been posting his own videos on YouTube since his college days at Harvard and has more than 100,000 subscribers to TheJLin7, his official channel on YouTube.
He taps out tweets three or four times a week to his 600,000 followers on Twitter. He gets it when it comes to the use of social media. His Twitter avatar shows an illustration of a white-robed Christ sitting on a bench with a young man in a pastoral scene. A large duffel bag and sleeping bag are on the ground next to the bench, implying that the young man may be homeless. The meaningful caption underneath the illustration reads as follows: “No, I’m not talking about Twitter. I literally want you to follow me” — Jesus.23
You can follow Jeremy on Twitter at @JLin7 (the No. 7 is his old number from his Golden State Warriors days).
Jeremy was parked at the end of the bench like there was a wheel clamp strapped to his Nikes. D’Antoni rarely called his number, which was No. 17. His favorite, No. 7, wasn’t available because the team’s marquee player, Carmelo Anthony, had already claimed it. During a press conference at the NBA All-Star weekend, Jeremy said he chose 17 because the number 1 represented himself and the number 7 represented God. “When I went to D-League, I had 17, and so everywhere I go, [God] would be right there next to me. And so that’s why I stuck with 17.”24
From December 28 to January 16, Jeremy played 16 minutes in 12 games, scoring a total of 9 points. Since the Knicks were losing more than they were winning, there was no way Jeremy could get into the offensive flow in the waning minutes of the game, when the outcome had been decided and the play was chaotic and unrehearsed. He couldn’t learn D’Antoni’s system because very few practice days could be scheduled in the contracted season.
On January 17, Jeremy was demoted to D-League — the Erie BayHawks, the Knicks’ developmental team affiliate.
Not again!
About this turn of events, Jeremy said, “I had no opportunity to prove myself. There was definitely a little bit of ‘What’s going on?’ in my prayers. My flesh was constantly pulling at me. Whine. Complain. Whine. Complain. But the other side of me was thinking, My God is all-powerful … When I look back, there are so many times in my life where I’ve questioned God. Why do I even doubt God? At the same time, it’s a growing process.”25
And at least Jeremy would get to play ball. In his BayHawks debut against the Maine Red Claws on January 20, Jeremy laid down a triple double — 28 points, 12 assists, and 11 rebounds. He played 45 of the 48 minutes and repeatedly beat defenders with an extremely quick first step.
The Knicks scouts were impressed, as they should have been. Jeremy was immediately recalled to New York, where the season was going nowhere fast. Throughout the rest of January and early February, losses piled up like snowdrifts. Six losses in a row. Win a game. Three losses in a row.
Mike Bibby and Toney Douglas were playing poorly. Baron Davis was still out. Iman Shumpert showed little aptitude for the point guard position. Then Carmelo Anthony, the team’s leading scorer, suffered a groin injury in mid-January and looked to be out for six weeks. There was no clear ball handler or offensive catalyst on the Knicks. Jeremy was still the forgotten man on the bench.
On Saturday, February 4, at halftime of a home game against the New Jersey Nets, the injured star Carmelo Anthony — dressed in street clothes — pulled Coach D’Antoni aside in the locker room and suggested he play Jeremy more. See what the kid could do. What was there to lose? The Knicks had been beaten in five of their previous six games and were on a 2 – 11 losing jag.
Jeremy played like he was back with the Erie BayHawks — aggressively, like he belonged in the NBA. D’Antoni left him in, and Jeremy grabbed the reins of leadership. He scored 25 points, snared 5 rebounds, and dished out 7 assists — all career highs — in leading the Knicks to a 99 – 92 victory.
D’Antoni liked what he saw — a real point guard running the offensive show. “You’re starting Monday night,” he told the second-year player.
Linsanity was about to be unleashed on an unsuspecting public.