HOUSTON: Jeremy Lin became a Broadway sensation, a coveted free agent and a merchandising magnet in Asia, all in less than a year.
In Houston, Lin will return to a role he used to enjoy at Harvard — team leader.
The rebuilt Houston Rockets met with the media on Monday before heading south to begin training camp, and they’ll turn to their charismatic new point guard for leadership and direction.
The 24-year-old Lin is hardly a seasoned veteran with only 25 starts in the NBA. It just seems that way after Lin soared to international stardom during a remarkable run with the New York Knicks last February. A restricted free agent, Lin signed an offer sheet with Houston, but Knicks coach Mike Woodson said New York planned to re-sign him.
The Rockets amended the offer to three years and about $ 25 million, with about $15 million backloaded to the final year. The Knicks backed off, and Lin returned to the team that cut him last December.
“It kind of reminds me of college,” said Lin, who started 87 games in the Ivy League. “Just coming in, trying to lead, trying to work hard, trying to build a culture of playing a blue-collar brand of basketball.”
Coach Kevin McHale concedes the Rockets will have to rely on scrappiness and guile to stay afloat this season, with most of the nucleus of last year’s team — Kyle Lowry, Courtney Lee, Goran Dragic and Luis Scola — gone to other teams.
“We have a lot of young guys. We have to find a rotation, we’ve got a lot of stuff to do,” McHale said. “Our goal is to try to win as many games as it takes to put ourselves in a position to get into the playoffs. That’s going to be a hell of a challenge, but that’s what I told our guys. We’ve got to find a way to get it done.”
McHale also is eager to learn the capabilities of each player, most of them virtually untested at the NBA level. Donatas Motiejunas, a 7-foot (2.14-meter) forward from Lithuania, averaged 16 points and 6.6 rebounds in Europe last year, and first-round picks Jeremy Lamb, Terrence Jones and Royce White begin their first training camps after playing for Houston’s summer-league team.
“We just have so many unknowns, so many guys who haven’t played with each other yet,” McHale said. “It’s hard to project what they’re going to do. But I would be shocked if we don’t play really hard and get after it.”
