NBA Rumors: Golden State Warriors Still Interested In Jeremy Lin After Reported Deal Fell Apart
After a reported Exhibit 10 agreement between the Golden State Warriors and veteran guard Jeremy Lin seemingly fell apart due to a technicality, the team is said to still be interested in the player that once brought “Linsanity” to the association. The Warriors’ continued willingness to add the 32-year-old to their affiliate squad was reported by The New York Times‘ Marc Stein on Sunday.
“The Warriors remain interested in adding Jeremy Lin to the @GLeagueWarriors should Lin decide to use the G League as the platform for a potential NBA comeback, league sources say,” he tweeted.
As noted by NBA.com, Shams Charania and Anthony Slater of The Athletic had reported just days earlier that the two sides were in the process of finalizing a deal. Golden State was then expected to waive Lin as opposed to giving him a spot on its 15-man opening-night roster, but the franchise would retain his G League rights via the Exhibit 10 contract. Consequently, he would begin the 2020-21 campaign with the Santa Cruz Warriors.
However, before he could put pen to paper, Lin needed to have a letter of clearance from the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) after having spent the 2019-20 season with the Beijing Ducks.
Per ESPN‘s Marc Spears, the six-foot-three point guard failed to receive his CBA letter ahead of an 11 p.m. ET deadline on Saturday night and the Warriors quickly moved to sign and waive undrafted rookie guard Eli Pemberton in his stead. Now, Pemberton is expected to make the move to Santa Cruz.
Before the apparent failure to obtain clearance from China, Lin himself had seeded doubts about a partnership with the Warriors, who had previously given him his very first professional contract in 2010.
Shortly after Charania’s initial report, the Harvard grad tweeted that it wasn’t “what it looks like.” He further asserted that “no decisions have been made” with regard to his future. However, he didn’t deny Charania’s reporting outright.
Before taking his game to Asia last year, Lin had averaged nearly 12 points and more than four assists per contest in 480 NBA games from 2010 to 2019, as noted by ESPN. Over that span, he also spent time with the New York Knicks, Houston Rockets, Los Angeles Lakers, Charlotte Hornets, Brooklyn Nets, Atlanta Hawks and Toronto Raptors.
He is best known for his run in New York, during which he emerged from relative obscurity to log multiple high-scoring efforts.
As shared previously by The Inquisitr, Lin has been a vocal critic of President Donald Trump throughout the ongoing pandemic for referring to COVID-19 as “the Chinese virus.”
