Josh Fan, Jeremy Lin’s personal trainer and college friend, estimates that he has seen the Hawks’ backup point guard take hard falls around 200 or so times. The fall on Oct. 19, 2017 with less five minutes to go in the Brooklyn Nets’ season opener against Indiana was different, and Fan knew it immediately.



Fan was back in New York watching the game at Lin’s older brother Josh’s apartment with both of their wives when he knew Lin’s season likely was done. Fan said he felt like the air was sucked out of the apartment and time had frozen because in the season prior, Lin had battled through hamstring injuries that forced him to miss 46 games. Now he was going to miss 81 more.



“I am always watching when he’s fallen down from a layup or dives after a loose ball,” Fan said. “I had never seen that reaction from him. I knew it had to have been somewhat catastrophic — maybe that’s too strong of a word, but...