Rockets sign Jeremy Lin
December 12th, 2011by John
With all the drama that went on with Rockets Luis Scola, Kevin Martin and Goran Dragic over the past few days with the proposed Lakers-Hornets-Rockets trade being rescinded by NBA commissioner David Stern, there was some refreshing and happy news when the Rockets surprisingly signed Chinese/Taiwanese-American Jeremy Lin.
For Rocket fans who are Asian-American sad that Yao isn’t representin’ any longer, having Lin around gives them something extra to look forward to.
Photo courtesy Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle
Lin was released from the Golden State Warriors on the first day of training camp. Apparently the Warriors are trying to save as much money as they can so they can have a better chance of landing a high-priced free agent. Lin’s contract pays him $800,000 this year.
More details about Lin’s release is here.
Since the Rockets are in a similar position of trying to sign a big free agent, you wouldn’t have expected them to add a 4th point guard (behind Kyle Lowry, Johnny Flynn, Goran Dragic). But you can probably expect Dragic will be traded one of these days (to our chagrin) since he was part of that rescinded trade with the Hornets, so maybe Lin could stick around as the Rockets’ third PG. Or the Rockets will be getting rid of Lin quickly like they do with other players where you think they will be around awhile, only trading them within a season or two for other “pieces” (Dragic, Trevor Ariza, Kevin Martin, etc.)
Here’s a link to a short article in the Houston Chronicle about Lin’s signing.
Here’s a video of Lin meeting Yao Ming in Taiwan (around the 1:10 mark) during Yao’s charity basketball tour in the summer of 2010 (and throwing down a dunk at the 8:10 mark), and photos of his meeting are here.
Update: Here’s a video brought to our attention from a commenter below of Lin being interviewed as a Golden State Warrior, along with his coach and fellow players.