Jeremy Lin Retires From Basketball After 9-Year NBA Career

Jeremy Lin calls it quits after remarkable 15-year basketball journey

Former NBA guard Jeremy Lin announced Saturday on Instagram that he’s hanging up his basketball shoes for good after a career that took him around the world.

“As athletes, we’re always aware that retirement is never far away,” Lin wrote. “I’ve spent my 15-year career knowing that one day I would have to walk away, and yet actually saying goodbye to basketball today has been the hardest decision I’ve ever made.”

The 37-year-old reflected on breaking barriers throughout his career.

“It’s been the honor of a lifetime to compete against the fiercest competitors under the brightest lights and to challenge what the world thought was possible for someone who looks like me,” he said. “I’ve lived out my wildest childhood dreams to play in front of fans all around the world. I will forever be the kid who felt fully alive every time I touched a basketball.”

Lin’s path to basketball stardom was anything but smooth. After going undrafted out of Harvard in 2010, he signed with the Golden State Warriors but barely saw the court as a rookie, appearing in just 29 games and averaging less than 10 minutes per game.

He even spent time in the D-League (now G League) that season.

Things got worse before they got better. Lin was cut by both Golden State and the Houston Rockets before the lockout-shortened 2011-12 season even began.

The Linsanity Phenomenon

A few days after Houston released him, the New York Knicks took a chance on the unheralded guard.

What happened next became basketball legend.

During a magical 26-game stretch from February to March 2012, Lin exploded onto the scene, averaging 18.5 points, 7.7 assists and 2.0 steals per game. He transformed a struggling Knicks team that had started the season 8-15 into a playoff contender.

With Lin leading the charge, New York went 16-10 during this stretch and finished the season 36-30, good enough for the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs.

The phenomenon dubbed “Linsanity” wasn’t just about basketball. It sparked a movement of pride in the Asian American community and catapulted Lin into mainstream culture.

He appeared on the cover of Time, GQ, and back-to-back issues of Sports Illustrated.

NBA Champion and Global Ambassador

Lin’s Knicks career proved short-lived. As a restricted free agent in summer 2012, he verbally agreed to a four-year, $28.8 million offer sheet with the Rockets that New York declined to match.

After two seasons in Houston, Lin became something of a basketball nomad, playing for the Lakers, Hornets, Nets, Hawks, and Raptors over the next five years.

His NBA journey reached its pinnacle in 2019 when he won a championship with Toronto. Though primarily a role player by then, Lin contributed 7.0 points and 2.2 assists in about 19 minutes per game across 23 appearances with the Raptors.

Throughout his nine NBA seasons, Lin appeared in 480 regular season games (starting 221) and posted career averages of 11.6 points, 4.3 assists and 1.1 steals while shooting 43% from the field and 81% from the free-throw line.

For the past six years, Lin has mostly played professionally in China and Taiwan, continuing to grow the game’s popularity in Asia while extending his playing career.