Jeremy Lin rose to stardom in 2012 when he had a string of impressive performance with the New York Knicks. While Lin made headlines worldwide, not all were happy of his rapid rise to fame.
Former Knicks head coach Mike D'Antoni spilled the bean, revealing that Lin did not get any love from superstars Carmelo Anthony and Amar'e Stoudemire in 2012, Yahoo Sports reported. Lin had his Linsanity moment in New York but everything got complicated when Anthony and Stoudemire returned from injuries.
D'Antoni admitted that Anthony and Stoudemire resented Lin in 2012. In turn, Lin, who is now with the Brooklyn Nets, had a difficult time playing alongside the two superstars, who also needs a lot of touches to become effective.
"It was there, it's real," D'Antoni said, referring to resentment within the team. "The problem that we had was that for Jeremy to be really good, which he was, he had to play a certain way. It was hard for him to adapt."
The veteran coach, who is now the new head coach of the Houston Rockets, said that he tried to make things work by making positional changes. However, Lin failed to co-exist with Anthony and Stoudemire because the two veterans were not willing to adjust to make way for the former Harvard University standout.
"Can they co-exist? Can they not?" D'Antoni continued. "They could have co-existed if Melo went to the 4, which he really didn't want to and Amare came to the back up 5, like with Tyson, which he really didn't want though."
As a result, Lin defected to Anthony in the latter half of the season, which did not work well for the Knicks. The summer after Lin's breakout season in New York, he decided to sign a lucrative deal with the Houston Rockets.
Previous reports indicated that his relationship with Anthony was one of the reasons why Lin opted to go into a different direction. In fact, Stoudemire once told the New York Post that some teammates were not ready to accept the fact that Lin is the new star of the team.
"Everyone wasn't a fan of him being a new star. So he did not stay long," Stoudemire said. The report added that while Stoudemire did not name names, he was obviously referring to Anthony.
Relieve Lin's impressive run with the Knicks in 2012 below.