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Jeremy Lin: Coaches lost faith in me[/COLOR]
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Jeremy Lin is ready to move on from a disappointing season with the Houston Rockets.
Speaking at a youth conference in Taiwan, Lin gave a candid assessment of his first season in Houston, claiming that Rockets coaches lost confidence in him due to his inconsistent play.
"I became so obsessed with becoming a great basketball player ... trying to be Linsanity, being this phenomenon that took the NBA by storm," Lin told a crowd of approximately 20,000 at the Dream Big, Be Yourself youth conference in Taipei, Taiwan.
"The coaches were losing faith in me; basketball fans were making fun of me. ... I was supposed to be joyful and free, but what I experienced was the opposite. I had no joy, and I felt no freedom."
Lin admitted during the youth conference that he placed extremely high expectations on himself upon joining the Rockets.
"I was ready to invigorate the entire city of Houston," he said. "I was supposed to save Houston basketball."
Lin was one of Houston's marquee acquisitions prior to last season. Following a breakout 2011-12 campaign with the New York Knicks, he signed a three-year, $25 million deal to join the Rockets.
But Lin struggled, averaging 13.4 points and 6.1 assists a game, and battled injuries that forced him to miss two games in Houston's playoff-round loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Lin went as far to say that he experienced "emptiness, confusion and misery" at points last season.
"The one thing I learned was how empty fame and worldly success really are. ... The desire for success never stopped," Lin said. "If the voice that you listen to the most isn't God's voice, then eventually you will experience that emptiness, confusion and misery that I felt when I listened to the voice of Linsanity."
Lin, a devout Christian, told the crowd that he has leaned on his faith in order to reassess his basketball career and his future.
The Rockets will be counting on Lin, who will turn 25 on Friday, to help lead an emerging team that features newly acquired star center Dwight Howard and All-Star guard James Harden.
http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/9...ouston-rockets-coaches-lost-faith-last-season