Image Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images

Nine-Year NBA Veteran and Former Champion Announces Retirement From Professional Basketball

The end of Linsanity!

Image Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images

One-time NBA Champion and New York Knicks star Jeremy Lin announced his retirement from professional basketball. With this, he ended his 15-year-long career that spanned across the United States, China and Taiwan. Lin, who is the first Asian American player to win an NBA Championship, took to social media and revealed that he’s calling time on his professional career.

The first American of Chinese or Taiwanese descent to play in the NBA wrote in his post, “As athletes, we are always aware that the possibility of retirement is never far away.” He added, “I’ve spent my 15-year career knowing that one day I would have to walk away, and yet actually saying goodbye to basketball today has been the hardest decision I’ve ever made.”

Jeremy Lin retires: “Its been the honor of a lifetime to compete vs the fiercest competitors under the brightest lights…to challenge what the world thought was possible for someone who looks like me.…I’ll forever be the kid who felt fully alive everytime I touched a basketball” pic.twitter.com/Nf2CcBtbIS
— New York Basketball (@NBA_NewYork) August 31, 2025

Lin described it as his “honor of a lifetime” “to compete against the fiercest competitors under the brightest lights and to challenge what the world thought was possible for someone who looks like me.”

Jeremy Lin’s Career at a Glance

Jeremy ‘Linsanity’ Lin was born to an American Taiwanese family in San Francisco, Bay Area. During his high-school tenure, he earned several honors as a senior. After not receiving any athletic scholarship offers, he went on to attend Harvard University. In his college career, Lin earned all-conference player in the Ivy League honors thrice. He remained undrafted out of college and ended up signing with the Golden State Warriors in 2010. Lin rarely got any chance to play in his rookie season, and was on outings with the NBA G League.

Never forget Jeremy Lin waiving off Kobe and hitting the clutch 3

pic.twitter.com/ncYaDjPXyB
— Overtime (@overtime) August 31, 2025

Following his departure from the Dubs and the Houston Rockets, he joined the New York Knicks in early 2011-12. After his breakthrough tenure with the Knicks, he played for the Rockets, the Los Angeles Lakers, Charlotte Hornets, Brooklyn Nets, Atlanta Hawks and the Toronto Raptors. The 6’3” guard left the NBA in 2019 and ended up signing with the Beijing Ducks. There, he became an All-Star in the Chinese Basketball Association.

In his nine-year-long NBA career, Lin averaged 11.6 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 4.3 assists in 480 appearances for eight teams. He won his first and the only NBA championship with the Toronto Raptors in 2019. They defeated Lin’s former team, Golden State Warriors in six games. It was also the first time the NBA Finals were held outside of the United States.

Jeremy Lin

Garima Ranawat

Garima is a sports writer with around two years of experience in Indian sports and a newfound interest in the NBA. Inspired by the leadership of cricketing legend MS Dhoni, she wishes to bring in newer perspectives to the NBA fanatics with her writing.