Jeremy Lin Vows Latest Knee Injury Won’t Change His Game

Jeremy Lin vows nothing from his game will change once he returns from his latest knee injury.

ESPN reports the Brooklyn Nets veteran guard is expected to make his return to the court by training camp next season, an occurrence that can’t come soon enough for Lin, sidelined since opening night with a ruptured patella tendon in his right knee.

Highlighting that doctors have assured him of a full recovery, Lin recently pronounced his rehab as going “really smooth” with “no issues.”

“Shoot, if I am not [ready by training camp], there’s issues,” said Lin, who is doing his rehab work in Vancouver.

As much as Nets fans may be pleased to hear all is going well on the rehab front, being assured that nothing will change about his style of play surely has to rate as being just as soothing.

“I am not going to change the bread and butter of who I am, which is downhill, attacking, dynamic play-making,” he said. “I will always be that player. Maybe the type of risks… I don’t know, I never really saw them as risks, but what we will see is probably a similar style but in a safer way. I will still be in the paint heavy.”

Lin was tight-lipped about if he’s already returned to the court in his rehab, simply maintaining that things are going well.

“It’s going really smooth,” he said. “Everything is how we would expect it to be. No issues on that end. I think one of the big reasons [for rehabbing in Vancouver] is just that it’s hard with the team traveling back and forth, especially early on after surgery when you can’t really fly… This process is something that requires quite a bit of time. It’s really become a lifestyle for me in terms of devoting [time].”

Though he’s now been limited to just 37 games since signing with the Nets two summers ago, Lin said he isn’t interested in hearing how other athletes who have suffered the same patella tendon injury have fared in their return to form.

“Quite honestly, I don’t really talk to other people who have had this injury,” he said. “I don’t really mean it in an arrogant way, I just don’t care about their experiences in terms of if they feel like they didn’t come back 100 percent. That is them, that is their body, like, whatever is going to happen to me is going to happen to me. I know how much I am putting in, and I know how different I will be after. What somebody’s else’s process, to me really I don’t care.”

Lin went down on opening night against Indiana and left the court in tears and had to be helped to the locker room by teammates. ESPN reported the veteran guard came up lame late in the fourth quarter of the Nets 140-131 loss.

Coach Kenny Atkinson said the decision to take his rehab plan abroad was made between Lin and the organization.

“It was a collaborative effort between [general manager] Sean [Marks] and I, and our performance team, and the group in Vancouver, which is respected throughout the world for their know how,” Atkinson said. “And Jeremy’s group too. It was a collaborative decision.”

The New York Post has reported both Lin and Marks have ties to Fortius Center where Lin is rehabbing, and two-time former league MVP Steve Nash is known to have helped develop some of the center’s programs.