A day after a league official told ESPN’s Marc J. Spears that the G-League is investigating a claim by Jeremy Lin that he was called a “coronavirus” during a game, Lin tweeted that he “doesn’t name or be ashamed. to anybody”.
“I know this will disappoint some of you, but I’m not naming or embarrassing anyone.” Lin tweeted on Saturday. “What good is it in this situation for someone to be overthrown? It doesn’t make my community safer or solve any of our long-term problems with racism.”
In a Facebook post Thursday, Lin, the former NBA guard who now plays for the Santa Cruz Warriors in the G-League, spoke about the racism he believes the Asian American community continues to deal with and offered examples that he said he experienced.
“Being a 9-year NBA veteran doesn’t protect me from being called a‘ coronavirus ’on the court,” he wrote.
Lin did not specify when this was said and it was unclear whether the incident occurred in the G-League bubble in Orlando, Florida, where Lin currently plays as a member of Santa Cruz, the Golden State Warriors affiliate. .
Lin became the first NBA player of Chinese or Taiwanese descent when he joined the Warriors during the 2010-11 season. He became best known for a scoring stretch (which resulted in wins with the New York Knicks during the 2011-12 season) that was described as “Linsanity.” In total, the former Harvard star averaged 11.6 points and 4.3 assists in 480 NBA games from 2010 to 2019.
Earlier, he had talked about the racist taunts he received while playing, and said in a 2017 podcast that while some reached the NBA, they were much worse during his four years at Harvard while competing on the 2006 road to 2010.
“When I experienced racism in the Ivy League, it was my assistant coach Kenny Blakeney who spoke to me,” Lin tweeted Saturday. “He shared with me his own experiences as a black man: stories of racism he couldn’t begin to understand. Stories of being called the word or throwing things at him from cars. He drew from his experiences with identity to teach. “I was going to stay strong in mine. He was also the first person to tell me he was an NBA player as a second at Harvard. I thought I was crazy.”
Prior to his time in the G-League this season, Lin had been playing for the Chinese Basketball Association.