TORONTO - Jeremy Lin could be excused for wondering where all the
mass hysteria he attracted last season has gone, but the Houston Rockets
guard is not one to draw unnecessary attention to himself.
When Lin visited the Toronto Raptors in February he was a member of the
New York Knicks, playing the best basketball of his career and the face
of a global craze dubbed "Linsanity" that transcended the sporting
world.
But in Sunday's 103-96 road loss to a
weak Raptors team Lin had a pedestrian seven points, a far cry from the
27 he had in February when he made a game-winning three-pointer for the
Knicks with under a second to play.
"If I could
turn it on like a switch like that easy I would obviously turn it on but
that's not how it works," Lin told a group of reporters that paled in
comparison to the crowed he drew in February when a special room was set
up to accommodate the flood of media.
Houston's
offseason acquisition of Lin was made with hopes that he would build on
the breakout run he enjoyed with New York, who only plugged him into
their starting lineup after a rash of injuries.
Lin has shown flashes of brilliance that made him such an exciting
figure, most recently a 38-point outburst over a solid San Antonio Spurs
team last week that tied a career high for the 24-year-old
Taiwanese-American.
But he has failed to
consistently deliver what the Rockets were hoping for when they lured
him away from New York with a $25.1 million, three-year contract.
Just over a quarter of the way through the regular season, the man
behind the "Linsanity" craze has averaged 11 points, 4.1 rebounds and
6.1 assists per game for an 11-12 Rockets team that is ninth in a
15-team Western Conference where the top eight teams make the playoffs.
"I am not doing close to what I am capable of doing," said Lin, who
averaged 14.6 points in 35 games last season. "I'm my harshest critic
and I'll go ahead and say I'm doing terrible."
It has been a whirlwind of a year for Lin, who was virtually an unknown
bench player before going on an improbable multi-game stretch of
greatness that made him one of the National Basketball Association's
most popular players and gave birth to the "Linsanity" phenomenon.
Regardless of his play, there will surely be plenty of eyes on Lin come
Monday when he plays his first game at the New York Knicks since his
offseason move to Houston.
But while it may be a
date many NBA fans circled on their calendar when the 2012-13 schedule
was released, Lin just seems eager to move on and focus on winning
games.
"Definitely ready to get it over with. In
some sense there will be some closure," said Lin. "I am thankful for
those times because those were some great times but at the same time
it's (time for) the next chapter." —Reuters
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