Not that there’s anything wrong with sleeping on the couch. But home, for Jeremy Lin, is now where the bed is.
And, as Knicks fans well know, Lin will make his bed in Houston — at least for the next three seasons.
Lin, the one-month wonder whom James Dolan let walk when the Knicks owner refused to match the Rockets’ magnanimous offer sheet for a player with just 25 NBA starts under his waistband, worked out with his new teammates for the first time yesterday.
He got into town on Monday and crashed on new teammate Chandler Parsons’ couch, much as he did last season with both his brother and Knicks teammate Landry Fields. But Lin, who has rented an apartment in the same building as Parsons, has buying furniture at the top of his to-do list.
“I’ve got to get that bed in there, so I can sleep well tonight,” Lin told media members who swarmed the Toyota Center to talk with the first Taiwanese-American to play in the NBA.
Lin began last season with the Rockets, but was waived on Christmas Eve. The Knicks picked him up a few days later and, when their backcourt was hit hard by injuries, Lin got his chance and Linsanity was born.
Now he returns to Houston as the second coming which, in a way, this is.
“I don’t know if I’m the face of the franchise just yet,” Lin said. “I think we’re a young team and we’re all going to buy in. The thing about us is it’s not going to be any one person that’s going to carry us to where we want to go, it’s going to be everybody. I think it’s so early on, I’m just trying to get to know the guys.”
Lin originally signed a four-year, $28.8 million offer sheet with the Rockets, but the team revised its offer and made it three years and $25 million, with much of the guaranteed money earmarked for the third year. The extra money would have pushed the Knicks over the luxury-tax threshold in 2014-15, so Dolan — no doubt miffed at the change of terms — walked away, allowing the international marketing sensation and all those T-shirt sales to leave.
The Knicks, who had brought in veteran Jason Kidd to mentor Lin, then traded for Raymond Felton to replace him.
Lin spent the balance of his summer touring Asia, running a basketball camp in Beijing and visiting Taiwan, where his parents are from, for the first time. He also found time to catch his breath.
“Every once a while, I’ll take a look back and just be like, ‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ ” Lin said. “I was just appreciating the fact that I get to wake up and play basketball for a living. And even the whole NBA thing … [to] be able to play basketball for your job, like those are things I remind myself of every day.”
The undrafted free agent out of Harvard became the first player in league history to average 20 points and seven assists in his first five games. He scored 38 points against Kobe Bryant and the Lakers one night, then drained a game-winning 3-pointer against Toronto on another, and helped the Knicks to an eventual playoff berth.
He suffered a torn meniscus, had surgery in early April and missed the rest of the season.
“I feel good, I feel healthy. I feel lighter,” said Lin, who added he had lost 10 pounds since last season. “I’m excited.”
— with AP