LAS VEGAS (AP) — USA Basketball managing director Jerry Colangelo said Sunday that he is not worried about the Americans’ chances as they begin preparations for the FIBA World Cup, even after a wildly unpredictable process was needed just to fill a training-camp roster for the tournament that starts in China at the end of the month.
TAIPEI • Jeremy Lin’s summer began with a National Basketball Association (NBA) championship ring as a member of the Toronto Raptors, but things have gone downhill from there. Now a free agent and possibly despairing of another opportunity to play in the league, the veteran point guard spoke emotionally over the weekend of hitting “rock bottom”. Appearing on Good TV, a Taiwanese station specialising in Christian programming, he addressed an audience on the importance of never giving up. To make his point, he summarised a path through the NBA that did not play out as he had planned and has left him hoping to latch on somewhere and prove himself all over again. “Man, it’s hard, life is hard,” said the 30-year-old Lin, wiping tears from his eyes, “because I’ve always wanted to do things the right way, and I’ve given more of myself to God every single year, and every year, it gets harder. “In English, there’s a saying, and it says once you hit rock bottom, the only way is up. “But rock bottom just seems to keep getting more and more rock bottom for me. So, free agency has been tough. Because I feel like, in some ways, the NBA’s kind of given up on me.” Born in California to Taiwanese immigrants, Lin became the first Asian American to win an NBA title.
LOS ANGELES • Wearing an easy smile and sounding relieved, Anthony Davis officially held up his Los Angeles Lakers jersey as dozens of cameras clicked away. His introduction at the National Basketball Association team’s practice facility in El Segundo, California, on Saturday night marked the end of a costly months-long courtship and the dawn of a promising partnership with LeBron James. Yet the splashy photo opportunity, where more than 100 reporters watched Davis show off his new No. 3 jersey, was another reminder that nothing about his journey to Los Angeles has been easy.
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