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HOUSTON – For the monumental lengths the Houston Rockets had gone to wrest him out of New York, Jeremy Lin still walked into this franchise an uneasy, mistrusting soul. Somehow, the $25 million free-agent commitment hadn't eased an impending suspicion of betrayal, a gnawing uncertainty that sides would soon be chosen against him, that welcoming faces could soon turn without warning.



From the front office to the coaching staff, the Rockets found Lin slow to embrace them. New York had built up Lin, torn him down and spit him out far more cynical, far less earnest. In so many ways, he had come to isolate himself with the Knicks. He was wary of management and media, coaches and teammates and, ultimately, even his closest friends.

Who was with him?

Who was against him?

"I went into an absolute shell for a few months in New York," Lin told Yahoo! Sports. "I went through a phase when I didn't want to talk to anybody. I didn't want to talk to my friends. I didn't want to give anybody close to me a chance to mess up our relationship. I saw how publicity and fame changed certain people around me, and changed how people looked at me. And I hated it."

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Fame had come so fast, so without warning, it hasn't been until training camp and starting the season with Houston that Lin has finally breathed out, finally understood he had found a franchise that will let him grow, let him make his mistakes, let him be.

"It wasn't like I worried they were going to cut me," Lin said. "But it just seemed too good to be true. Like, the coach actually cared about what plays I enjoy running, or that the coach would text me on a day off to see how I was feeling. That type of stuff was too good to be true."

Lin was asked, "You had that with Mike D'Antoni, didn't you?"

"But it was so short," Lin responded.

And when Mike Woodson took over?

"It changed," Lin said. "Different style, different coach."

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Everything changed for Lin's reality, and maybe nothing at all. The Knicks never matched the offer sheet in restricted free agency, and some NBA players lined up to do something that that almost never happens to a peer in public: They ridiculed his $25 million deal.

Several days before that air ball in the final moments of a narrow loss to the Miami Heat on Monday night, before everyone started to ask again about his worthiness, Lin spoke of an NBA culture that will demand that he not only justify his contract, but his heritage.

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