Jeremy Lin Suffers Knee Injury In Brooklyn Nets Season Opener, Leaves Court In Tears

Jeremy Lin is expected to be evaluated on Thursday after leaving the Brooklyn Nets season opener Wednesday night in tears after suffering a knee injury.

ESPN reports the veteran guard came up lame late in the fourth quarter of the Nets 140-131 loss to the Indiana Pacers in Indianapolis.

Lin sustained his injury after landing awkwardly after a drive to the basket. Lin banged the floor in frustration before limping off the court and being helped to the locker room near tears.

ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski later reported the Nets have “tremendous concern” about the extent of Lin’s injury.

After signing a three-year, $30 million deal with the Nets in the summer of 2016, Lin played in just 36 games last season because of persistent hamstring injuries.

Lin had hinted he was optimistic the Nets were ready to turn the corner this season after registering just 20 wins last season. Brooklyn added former L.A. Lakers star guard D’Angelo Russell over the offseason in a deal that sent veteran center Brook Lopez to Los Angeles.

“I feel like we’re playing the right way,” Lin told Newsday after the Nets knocked off the cross-borough rival Knicks by 34 points in a recent preseason game. “Today, we had a great defensive game. We had a ton of assists [29] and we moved the ball. If we could draw it up, that’s how it would be, gritty defense leading to unselfish offense.”

Lin added he was equally intrigued by the Nets’ combination of length, speed, and depth.

“We’re seeing them play at a super-high intensity,” he said of his teammates. “I think that’s helping our overall team.”

Over the preseason, Brooklyn’s defensive intensity held opponents to under 40 percent shooting from the field, and 30 percent from three-point range. The Nets’ aggressiveness on the glass was also apparent, with the team out-rebounding opponents by a sizeable margin.

As the team’s unquestioned leader, Lin said he felt part of his job this season was keeping his young team focused night in and night out.

The veteran point guard came into the season having just put a distraction of his own in his rearview mirror.

Lin’s new dreadlock hairstyle sparked a bit of a controversy when former NBA star Kenyon Martin publicly chastised him over it, though he later apologized.

Lin later told ESPN the two had talked things out and he thought things were blown out of proportion and taken out of context.

[Featured Image by Al Bello/Getty Images]