Former Nets star Kenyon Martin made waves this week by ripping Jeremy Lin’s dreadlocks and claiming the Brooklyn guard “wanted to be black.” Now Martin has deleted the controversial Instagram post and apologized to Lin in a TMZ video.

Martin, who played for the Nets from 2000-04, insisted he was joking, admitted he was wrong and said his wording was “bad.” He repeatedly called Lin’s hair both funny and hilarious.

“Wasn’t really saying it to him. I just made a blanket statement, which I probably should’ve reached out to him,” Martin said. “But the man has dreadlocks and I thought it was hilarious. Nothing more, nothing less than I thought it was hilarious. I made a statement … wording probably was bad that I used, saying that he was trying to be black. Wasn’t my intention to be racist or anything like that.

“But nah, I thought it was hilarious. I thought it was nothing more than us getting a laugh and joke out of it, and people took it to the next level. People have been on my page taking it to the next level on the post and video that I made, racist this, N-word this, uneducated that. Uh, hmm. N-word? Black man, yeah. Uneducated? Graduated from high school and college. Racist? Far from it.

“So nah, none of the above, man. It was meant to be a joke that got out of control, that’s all. If I ruffled Jeremy Lin’s feathers or if I made him feel [that] way, I apologize brother. Reached out to Jeremy, haven’t heard back from him. Like I said, I’m a grown man and I can admit when I’m wrong. When things get out of control I can admit when I was wrong, and my wording was bad.”

Then Martin closed by adding, “Is it still funny that he has dreadlocks? Yes!”

For his part, Lin took the high road both in his comment on Martin’s original post then when asked by The Post about the situation after Thursday night’s preseason win over Miami.

“We need to spend a little more time thinking about what it’d be like to be somebody else,” Lin said. “He said what he said but I’m not really that offended. If that’s how he thinks, that’s how he thinks. But my job is to be gracious, loving and if I can just share with him a little of my side I think the next time maybe he’ll have a different viewpoint. … I think both sides need to come together.

“As minorities if we’re able to appreciate [each other], if Asians would be passionate about issues that aren’t just related to Asians, if African-Americans are able to be passionate about issues that aren’t just related to African-Americans, I think we’ll start to see something big happen and we’ll be able to influence mainstream society. I think that’s the ultimate goal.”