◄ Jeremy Lin ►

Quotes

And people are always saying he deceptively quick, deceptively athletic, and I don't know if that's just because I'm Asian or what it is, but obviously there's going to be stereotypes that you have to fight.

Coming out of college into the draft, being Asian-American and being from Harvard, that's not going to be an advantage because of stereotypes.

Faith, family, academics and then sports was the order of priorities in my family. My parents really stuck to these principles when raising me and my two brothers. As long as we took care of everything, they let us play as much basketball as we wanted.

I absolutely would not have liked playing in Spain or somewhere like that, so I was just gonna do it a year. Then I was gonna be done.

I get scared of a lot of attention. I get scared of the spotlight. And I'm not talking about on the basketball court.

I grew up in the church, and I always kind of knew Bible stories and knew the Sunday school answers, but when I was a freshman in high school I joined youth group, and that's when I started to see radical love; that's when I started to see what Christian community is supposed to look like and what fellowship is supposed to look like.

I have an economics degree with a minor in sociology. The reason I have that is because I want to do a ministry in urban areas and help with underprivileged kids.

I have worked out with the Thunder, Lakers, Knicks, Grizzlies, Spurs, and a few others before the draft. I have worked out primarily against shorter and supposedly faster players in these workouts.

I just really, really, really hate to lose. Really.

I just think in order for someone to understand my game, they have to watch me more than once, because I'm not going to do anything that's extra flashy or freakishly athletic.

I just try to play as hard as I can every possession. If you're aware and you're high-energy, the ball will eventually bounce your way and you'll be able to make plays.

I love eating junk food. I'm a huge snacker, chips and candy.

I love my family, I love my relatives. One special request I have is for the media back in Taiwan to kind of give them their space because they can't even go to work without being bombarded and people following them.

I speak Mandarin and can read and write a little. I took a few classes at Harvard to get better in my reading and writing skills.

I struggle with pride every day, but the one thing that I try to remind myself everyday is that I'm still a sinner no matter how many points/assists/win I get on the court.

I think I've always been a player who's done better in the second half, who's done better in the fourth quarter. That's the fun time to play, when everything you've worked for the whole game boils down to those last few possessions.

I think right now the way society's going, I think role models are important, and kids need direction. If I didn't have that direction growing up, who knows what I could be doing, because I've been lost many times in my life, and I've had to have someone guide me back on the right path.

I try to focus on what I'm supposed to do, and to do my job the best I can. I kind of let everything happen the way it's supposed to happen, let everything fall into place the way it should.

I want to be a representative and be a role model for the Asian American community.

I was a big Michael Jordan fan growing up. I don't feel my game resembles his though.

I was playing garbage minutes the first two to three weeks. There was definitely a little bit of 'what's going on?' in my prayers.

I was shocked cause I didn't even know that they made my jersey. I didn't know that they made it so fast, so when I saw it I was like, I had to look three times and I was like, 'Did they customize that?' And then I saw a couple of other ones and I was like, ok, they must've made them overnight or something.

I would be a pastor. It is something I think about doing when my playing days are over.

If I had a day to myself I would just play video games with my brothers.

I'm a playmaker. I'm always attacking the rim and have somewhat of a reckless style. I try to be everywhere at once.

I'm going to be honest, playing in D-League games is tough.

I'm going to make mistakes, I just have to be able to learn from them as quickly as possible. To learn faster, I watch film of myself and other good point guards, and then breaking down my mistakes and really analyzing them and seeing where I could have made better decisions.

I'm not like the next Michael Jordan, but I'm also not what everyone saw me as before I started playing in the NBA, either.

I'm not playing for other people; if I start thinking in those terms I would put too much pressure on myself. I play basketball because that is what I love to do.

I'm not playing to prove anything to anybody.

I'm very humbled and honored. I'm very thankful to the Asian-American Community for all their support!

In many ways, the longer I live, I understand that there are so many things outside my control. That's why I believe faith is such a big part of the story. There are so many things that were orchestrated by God, that were put into place to make this perfect storm, that created Linsanity.

It seems like everybody's perception of me is very bipolar. To one group, it's overpaid, overrated; to another group, it's underpaid, underrated, underdog. It's funny to me because there's no real balance.

I've always been a target. Everyone looks me and says, 'I'm not going to let that Asian kid embarrass me. I'm going to go at him.' That's how it's been my whole life.

I've learned that social media and our private lives, you know, our private lives are not so private anymore, so it takes a little bit of getting used to.

My audience is God.

My best career decision was probably not giving up when I wanted to. God as well as my family and friends were there for me during my toughest times.

My dad was the one who really loved basketball, and he was the one that put the basketball in my hands, and my mom was 'Team Mom' of all my teams. I used to play for three or four teams at once and she would just spend her entire afternoon driving me from practice to practice to practice.

My family used to call me an oversized kid and I think that's pretty accurate in some ways.

My first dunk ever was in middle school. We were playing, me and my church friends, and I dunked it, and I swear I could not sleep that night.

Not sure if that will benefit me or hurt me, but I know I have the skills and am ready to play in the NBA regardless of my ethnicity.

People are moved by my story, but they're only moved by my story because of what I do on the court.

People started saying, 'Oh you know, he's quicker than he looks', and I'm like, 'What does that mean? Do I look slow, or I'm not really sure what that means.

Sometimes you come up against a mountain and you end up making the mountain seem bigger than God.

Stuff about me dating Kim Kardashian - I have no idea where that came from and all these other rumors. I don't think I'm that type.

The first time I went to Taiwan, there were cameras, paparazzi, TV stations outside my hotel twenty-four hours a day nonstop.

There is so much temptation to hold on to my career even more now. To try to micromanage and dictate every little aspect. But that's not how I want to do things anymore. I'm thinking about how can I trust God more. How can I surrender more? How can I bring him more glory? It's a fight. But it's one I'm going to keep fighting.

Tim Tebow is one of my biggest inspirations. I actually want to be able to do some of the things that he does in terms of the amount of charity work and the non-profit work, and the way he impacts people off the field. I think that is what is most inspiring to me about him.

When I'm on the court, I try to play with all my emotion and heart.

When you think about your relationship with Christ, it really just affects every aspect of your life. I think a lot of people try to segment off, like, 'This is church, so this is God, this is my daily life, this is my job,' but I think true faith is when it manifests itself in every single aspect of your life.

With all the media attention, all the love from the fans, I felt I needed to prove myself. Prove that I'm not a marketing tool, I'm not a ploy to improve attendance. Prove I can play in this league. But I've surrendered that to God. I'm not in a battle with what everybody else thinks anymore.

You have to be wired a certain way to be a professional basketball player, and the way my body grew, something happened genetically that allowed me to become a lot more explosive.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

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