The Kaohsiung Steelers have confirmed rumors that they are trying to recruit NBA star Jeremy Lin for next season, admitting they face challenges, but saying they are not giving up.
Steelers general manager Kenny Kao told the Central News Agency in an interview in Taipei this week that the Steelers are trying to enlist Lin, but face competition from other P.League+ clubs.
“If you have a great talent, you have someone that’s a legendary figure and likely the best Asian basketball player ever, and you don’t pursue that kind of talent, you’re not doing your job right,” Kao said.
Photo: AP
Lin rose to fame in 2012 as a member of the New York Knicks when, as the first American of Taiwanese descent to play in the NBA, he unexpectedly led the Knicks to a winning turnaround and inspired the “Linsanity” craze.
He has been a hot topic on the Internet with fans and media trying to guess his next move, as he has not yet been signed by any club in the Chinese Basketball Association, where he played last season for the Beijing Ducks.
Hence, fans and media have speculated that Lin might play in one of Taiwan’s professional leagues, just like his younger brother, Joseph Lin, who plays in the P.League+ for the Taipei Fubon Braves.
Commenting on such speculation, Kao said that every general manager of a club in the P.League+ is trying to enlist Jeremy Lin.
“If you ask any general manager of this league: ‘Are you trying to get Jeremy?’ If he says no, then there’s two possibilities — one possibility is he is lying, the second possibility is that he is going to get fired,” Kao said.
One of the challenges the Steelers face when competing with other teams for Jeremy Lin is the imbalance of resources between northern and southern Taiwan.
“The north maybe can say that it has more hipper things than we do, but that’s no reason to get upset and stop trying. So, like I said, if we don’t try for it, we are neglecting our fans’ wishes,” Kao said.
Apart from trying to recruit the former NBA sensation, Kao said that another goal he has is to build the right culture for the club, so Kaohsiung residents would identify with the club and be proud to tell people they are “Steelers fans.”
He hopes to achieve that by showing everyone the dedication of his staff and the passion of his players when competing with their hearts out on the court, he said.
“I think the fans will appreciate that and I hope they will appreciate the struggle too, because it’s not going to be an instant success. In basketball it’s hard to get instant success because everything is accumulative,” Kao said.
Echoing Kao, Steelers head coach Slavoljub Lale Gorunovic said that he has big expectations for next season.
“I hope next season will be much better than last season because we have more time for preparations and I hope our roster will be stronger,” the Serbian said.
The Steelers were one of two teams, the other being the Taoyuan Pilots, that did not advance into the playoffs last season. The Kaohsiung team finished fifth in the six-team league’s regular-season standings with a 9-20 record.
By the time Cameron Menzies finally left the arena on Monday, the blood gushing from the gash on his right hand had trickled down his wrist, part of his forearm and — somehow — up to his face. Smeared in crimson and regret, and already mouthing sheepish apologies to the crowd, he disappeared down the steps, pursued by a stern-looking Matt Porter, the chief executive of Professional Darts Corp (PDC). The physical scars from Menzies’ encounter with the Alexandra Palace drinks table after his 3-2 defeat against Charlie Manby at the Darts World Championship would be gone within a few weeks.
Manchester United on Monday blew the lead three times to miss out on moving up to fifth in the Premier League as AFC Bournemouth would not be beaten in a thrilling 4-4 draw at Old Trafford. United have lost just once in their past 10 games, but Ruben Amorim would be frustrated as more points at home were frittered away despite arguably the best attacking display of his reign in charge. Amad Diallo and Casemiro gave the hosts a halftime lead either side of Antoine Semenyo’s equalizer. Two Bournemouth goals from Evanilson and Marcus Tavernier in seven minutes at the start of the
LOW-GOAL SHOOT-OUT: Of the nine penalties in the shoot-out, only three went in, with Flamengo’s Samuel Lino, and Vitinha and Nuno Mendes of PSG netting Matvei Safonov on Wednesday made four straight penalty saves in a penalty shoot-out to help Paris Saint-Germain beat Flamengo in the Intercontinental Cup final and win a sixth trophy of the year. The Russian goalkeeper was thrown in the air by his teammates after his exploits in the shoot-out, which was won 2-1 by PSG after a 1-1 draw after extra-time. It completed a trophy-laden 12 months for the French team, who had already won the Trophee des Champions, Ligue 1, the Coupe de France, the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Super Cup — also on penalties against Tottenham Hotspur in
LACKLUSTER FIGHT: At one stage, the referee lost patience with the two fighters, warning them in the fourth round that ‘the fans did not pay to see this crap’ Former world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua on Friday knocked out YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul in their controversial Netflix-backed bout in Miami. The fight at the Kaseya Center, which saw both men reportedly splitting a mammoth purse of US$184 million, had triggered alarm across boxing due to the gulf in physical size and class between Britain’s two-time former world champion Joshua and Paul, an Internet personality who has forged a lucrative career through a handful of novelty boxing contests. However, in the event, Joshua made hard work of defeating his vastly less accomplished opponent, before his superior size and power eventually told
RSS