Being a star in the NBA often means managing the behavior of the most ardent fans, who sometimes struggle to place the right cursor. And if the player in question wasn’t even destined to become a star, the shock is all the greater… Ask Jeremy Lin, for example!
Any celebrity will tell you: there’s good and bad in being famous. Good ? The admiration of millions of people around the world, countless opportunities opening up and a way to positively impact some people’s lives. On the other hand, the lack of calm, the constant stares, and the incessant gossip can wear down those who are in the light. Jeremy Lin experienced both sides of the same coin.
Skyrocketed during the famous “Linsanity” in New York in the early 2010s, the Taiwanese-origin candidate quickly fell back into anonymity, even if he managed to snag a ring as a rotation player alongside Toronto in 2019. But Lin will never forget his golden days, when everything was crazy… even the attitudes of fans.
Jeremy Lin reveals the crazy behavior of groupies
During an interview with River on the Daily Beast’s mic, Lin opened up about the crazy scenes he had to pull through despite not being prepared:
I remember the rumors that I was in a relationship with Kim Kardashian when I had never met her in my life! There were so many things… Sometimes it was really weird, things happened that I never imagined. The cool side is that BMW was in the “oh come on over here, sign an autograph or two, take a picture or two and we’ll give you a free car” mode. Many brands sent me stuff.
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But apart from that… there are the slightly spooky things. For example, people were waiting for me in front of my house, even in front of my parents’ house. Some fans hid in the bushes. And the worst thing was the girls who wanted to hand in their panties to my parents and waited for me there in hiding. Very strange!
After crossing the desert, Jeremy Lin thought he could return to the top of the NBA… to no avail. And he keeps a bitter foretaste of this end of the course:
All of that is another important part of the story… I did everything in Santa Cruz in the G-League, I was leading in points, in assists, in shooting efficiency. And everyone had contracts in the NBA except me… No one wanted to start the thing. I’ve spoken to owners, GMs, Adam Silver, and players and no one would trigger.
I had accepted a salary of $30,000 for my 11th year in the league to come back and do what I did in the G-League and it wasn’t enough…
Jeremy Lin has experienced the madness of being a superstar for a few weeks and it’s hard to imagine the mental toll on a player who’s been treated like that for 10, 15 or 20 years. LeBron James or Michael Jordan could also say a word about it. In any case, whoever is playing in China now doesn’t seem angry that this crazy time is over!