2019 Toronto Raptors champ Jeremy Lin pondering retirement after latest title win
The last time Jeremy Lin was on an NBA court in 2019, he was walking off as a champion with the Toronto Raptors.
A veteran of nine NBA seasons, Lin hasn’t been in the league for six years now, but has continued his playing career mostly overseas.
This past season, he won a title with the New Taipei Kings of the Taiwan Professional Basketball League, averaging 22.4 points, 5.4 rebounds, six assists and 1.9 steals in the playoffs on his way to being named playoff MVP.
And he could end his whole career the same way his NBA one wrapped up — going out on top.
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Lin was back in Toronto this past weekend as part of a celebrity basketball game he co-hosts with actor Simu Liu, run through the Asian Roots Collective charitable organization.
During a Q&A session with Liu prior to the game, Lin responded to an audience query about his playing future.
“I’ll be very candid in my response. I think the biggest thing I can do is I can take a vacation. Our season is 10 months, and I just went to do my signature shoe tour, and then I came to Toronto to do this. So the biggest thing I can do is get away,” Lin replied.
Lin said that he’s planning to meet with his psychologist in the coming months to see if he’s ready to commit to playing more basketball.
“I’ve already lined up with them some sessions to figure out, deeply, like ‘what do I want to do? Do I want to continue playing? And is playing basketball part of my future?'” Lin added.
What has Jeremy Lin been up to since leaving the Raptors?
After making headlines in 2010 for being the first American of Chinese or Taiwanese descent to play in the NBA, he rose to global superstardom as the surprise starting point guard of the New York Knicks in 2012 during his second year in the league.
Though he was a fan favourite during his short stint in Toronto, he was quite deep in the rotation in what ended up being his final NBA season. In the 2019 playoffs, Lin made eight appearances, suiting up for a total of just 27 minutes en route to the Raptors’ title.
“The thing that I’m really proud of, that I do really try to fight for, is how can I maintain the same joy and the same purity towards basketball, towards this platform, towards being in the spotlight? How can I maintain that after all these years?” Lin added during his appearance in Toronto.
Outside of a nine-game stint with the Santa Cruz Warriors of the G League, the 36-year-old has now played three seasons in China and three in Taiwan after his emotional departure from the NBA.
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