Jeremy Lin’s next NBA chapter will be behind the desk. The 10-year veteran, who retired in 2025 after a career that ran from Linsanity to a 2019 title in Toronto, is joining ESPN as an analyst for the 2026 NBA Finals, Summer League and studio shows including NBA Today.
Key takeaways
- Lin sees Chet Holmgren entering a defining season and is watching whether the Thunder big man can answer the adjustments opponents made against him.
- He identified Boston, Toronto and Houston as teams carrying major roster and chemistry questions into the season.
- Lin wants his television work to combine tactical teaching with an ex-player’s feel for locker-room pressure and decision-making.
- His hardest playoff memory remains a late turnover against Portland in 2014, followed by being booed at home before posting a personal postseason high in Game 5.
- Lin said Damian Lillard recognized Houston’s defensive confusion before drilling the series-ending shot in Game 6.
From the floor to the ESPN desk
Lin went undrafted in 2010 and played for the Warriors, Knicks, Rockets, Lakers, Hornets, Nets and Hawks before landing with the Raptors for their championship run. His breakout in New York, a scorching two-week stretch that became known as Linsanity, helped push the Knicks into the playoffs. He later continued his career in China and Taiwan after a comeback attempt with the Santa Cruz Warriors.
For his move into broadcasting, Lin is studying a wide range of voices. He pointed to Mike Breen, Tim Legler and Jeff Van Gundy among the established broadcasters whose work he wants to learn from, while also citing Richard Jefferson, Austin Rivers, Iman Shumpert and Cam as newer personalities with a different connection to today’s players.
His ideal role is a blend of Legler’s teaching and Van Gundy’s understanding of the game’s details, while still explaining the emotions, internal pressure and real-time thinking of players. Malika Andrews has been especially important in his early media work, Lin said, describing her as a mentor.
Lin also plans to keep making social-media film breakdowns. He said his post-retirement goal is to pass along lessons from coaches and former teammates, whether through television work or short-form analysis, and eventually build more of that content around what fans want examined.
Asked which eras are worth revisiting, Lin leaned toward the players and teams that altered the sport rather than simply the champions. He named James Harden’s stepback, Stephen Curry’s shooting, Dirk Nowitzki’s reshaping of the power-forward position and perceptions of European players, Steve Nash’s Seven Seconds or Less Suns, positionless basketball, Allen Iverson, and the Zach Randolph-Marc Gasol Grizzlies. To Lin, the Grit and Grind identity and other such movements became cultural markers as much as basketball results.
What Lin is watching, and what stayed with him
Holmgren is high on Lin’s watch list. Lin framed the season as a pivot point for the young center after what he viewed as a different kind of exposure last year: can Holmgren take another step, remain at the same level, or slip backward?
He also sees questions around Kawhi Leonard’s fit with both Boston and Toronto, while wondering whether Jayson Tatum can rise further following Jaylen Brown’s departure. Houston, in Lin’s view, has the personnel to become a serious title threat if Fred VanVleet and Marcus Smart are healthy and the Rockets clean up last season’s chemistry and culture problems. He believes those two veterans can supply the leadership needed.
Lin’s favorite team to watch is San Antonio. He is particularly eager to see a three-guard group featuring Dylan Harper, Stephon Castle and De’Aaron Fox.
One playoff series still stands out from his Houston years. Lin recalled a turnover near the end of regulation in Game 4 against Portland in 2014 as the toughest night of his professional career. The response came in Game 5, when Rockets fans booed him on his home floor before he recorded a career-best postseason scoring performance and turned the building around.
Then came Lillard’s iconic Game 6 winner. Lin said he had defended Lillard through a scoreless fourth quarter before being substituted out. As Houston prepared for the final possession, coach Kevin McHale reviewed the coverage, but Lin recalled Harden and Chandler Parsons appearing uncertain before the inbound. Lillard later said he noticed the confusion, sprinted to the pass, caught it and fired a shot that was not Portland’s original design.
“Damian Lillard is a killer,” Lin said, calling the game-winner an example of an elite scorer instantly exploiting uncertainty.
Lin remains close with OG Anunoby, a relationship that developed during their time in Toronto. He said Anunoby was still an unheralded young player while Lin was outside the main rotation during the Raptors’ title run, but their reconnection after the championship has meant a great deal to him. Lin described Anunoby as as kind and genuine as he was in his second NBA season.
His favorite Linsanity memory was beating the Lakers. Growing up in Northern California, Lin said, made victories over Southern California teams carry extra weight.
Guard play, pressure and the details that extend a career
Lin’s central advice on pressure is to redefine success around preparation and decision-making, not whether a shot falls. On a crucial late-game possession, he said, the wrong mindset is believing that a miss would be unacceptable. If the player gets an open look he has trained for, taking it is the win; passing up that moment is the failure.
That approach, Lin said, creates acceptance of the result and gives the player a better chance to perform. Pressure can sharpen a player, but an overload of it can also restrict him. The target is confidence in the action without anxiety about the outcome.
As a downhill guard, Lin’s most dependable move was not elaborate: with the ball in his right hand, he used a hesitation built around a left-left-right foot sequence before bursting forward. He emphasized three elements for players trying to get to the rim: deception, sharp driving angles and an explosive first step.
He also believes initiating contact is an underappreciated offensive skill. Many players try to create room by immediately moving away from a defender, but Lin said top scorers often move closer first, limiting the defender’s ability to react before creating separation on their own terms.
Dorell Wright was one of the teammates who most helped Lin early in his career. During Lin’s rookie season with Golden State, Wright urged him to invest in a floater. Lin took that instruction seriously, and said the shot helped him keep playing after significant injuries.
For guards working alone, Lin recommends free-flowing ballhandling with changing pace and moves, paired with sudden stops into jump shots. The workout needs only a basketball, a hoop and a player willing to repeat it.
His advice for older recreational players follows the same practical line: develop small ways to manufacture a shot. A jab, an eye fake, or one step into a defender can create enough room without relying on speed that fades with age. The priority, he said, is enjoying the game without going home injured when work and family responsibilities are waiting.
Lin’s first dunk came between his sophomore and junior high-school seasons, though the celebration was short-lived when his older brother questioned whether the rim was regulation height. His mother, meanwhile, has accumulated much of his game-worn jersey collection; Lin said he does not know exactly which jerseys she has or where they are stored.
He backed himself over his father in a hook-shot-only one-on-one game, reasoning that he would force him to his left hand. Away from the gym, Lin picked Naruto as his favorite anime for its belief in the good in people, chose Squirtle as his clear No. 1 Pokémon, and offered a specific In-N-Out order: a Double-Double with grilled and whole grilled onions, an extra-toasted bun and ketchup.
