Lin opens up about leaving Knicks: 'Honestly, I preferred New York' 林书豪谈离开尼克队心路历程--「老实说，我想留在纽约」 By Pablo S. Torre, Sports Illustrated 原文连结：http://ppt.cc/YPn_ At 11 p.m. EST on Tuesday night, one hour before the New York Knicks needed to decide whether to match the Houston Rockets' three-year, $25.1 million contract offer to keep Jeremy Lin, the point guard's cellphone rang at his parents' home in Palo Alto, Calif. The call was from New York general manager Glen Grunwald and the conversation lasted no more than 30 seconds. Grunwald's message, Lin told SI.com, was simple and direct: "We wanted to keep you, but it couldn't work out. Tell your family I say hello, and good luck the rest of the way." 美东时间晚上11点，距离跟进合约的截止时间只有1小时。 林书豪人在家中，他的手机这时响了起来。 电话是尼克队总经理Glen Grunwlad打来的，这通电话只讲了不到30秒。 林书豪说，Grunwald的意思很简单也很直接： 「我们想留下你，但办不到。替我向你家人问好，祝好运。」 That was it. One of the more intriguing and publicly debated personnel decisions in NBA history ended in half a minute. No questions were asked, no pointed comments were uttered and no animated feelings were expressed. Lin, the undrafted 23-year-old who rose to global stardom in his first 25 starts after being cut twice, politely told Grunwald, "I just want to thank you. Best of luck in the future." 就这样。 NBA历史上最复杂也引发各方争辩的人事决定，在半分钟内就结束了。 林书豪没有问任何问题、也没有尖锐的批评，甚至没有任何激昂的情绪， 他对Grunwald说： 「我只想对你说声谢谢。祝未来一切顺利。」 Late Tuesday night, in his inaugural hour as a Rocket, Lin opened up to SI.com about how the most popular basketball player in New York City ended up in Houston, where he'll have his official team physical today. How Knicks management -- which had spoken to him and his representatives only once this month before that call from Grunwald -- finally let him go. 周二晚间，林接受运动画刊采访，说明他从纽约尼克到休士顿火箭的过程，以及尼克为何 放弃他。在这个月、这通电话之前，尼克管理阶层只和他以及他的团队谈过一次。 "Honestly, I preferred New York," Lin says. "But my main goal in free agency was to go to a team that had plans for me and wanted me. I wanted to have fun playing basketball. ... Now I'm definitely relieved." 「老实说，我比较喜欢纽约。但我在签约时的主要目标，是加入一支真正需要我、 有计划栽培我的球队。我希望快乐打篮球……现在我的确松了一口气。」 ***** The process began in late June, when Knicks coach Mike Woodson, who was in Los Angeles visiting Carmelo Anthony, Tyson Chandler and Landry Fields, contacted Lin to arrange a meeting to discuss his future. When Woodson said that his schedule prevented him from coming to Palo Alto, Lin -- who has been living with his parents this summer -- wound up flying to L.A. That night, over dinner at Mastro's Steakhouse in Beverly Hills, the guard was sold. "Woodson was saying, 'You're going to be a starter, you're going to be a big part of the team,'" Lin says. "I came away really excited." 整个过程从六月底展开，尼克总教练武僧约林碰面，谈他的未来。 武僧说他没办法去位於Palo Alto的林家，林於是赶紧飞到洛杉矶与教练碰面。 当晚，在比佛利山的Mastro's牛排馆，林一直被灌输以下的说法。 「武僧告诉我『你会是先发、你是球队未来重要的一份子。』林这麽说。 我离开的时候真的是满心欢喜。」 But the next week, on July 1, the first day of the NBA's free agency period, the Knicks informed Lin and his agents, Jim Tanner and Roger Montgomery, that while the team had interest in bringing Lin back, they were also going to court other point guards to join him. The names of four candidates were provided. Three of them were veteran free agents, all age 36 or older: Steve Nash, Jason Kidd and Andre Miller. The fourth was former Knick Raymond Felton, 28, who played for the Trail Blazers last season. 但到了七月一日，自由市场开始第一天，尼克告知林与他的团队， 虽然球队希望林回来，他们也打算找其他控卫加入。 四名候选人分别是：Nash, Kidd, A. Miller, 还有Felton。 The Knicks would not make a formal offer to Lin -- not then, or, ultimately, ever -- instead opting to steer him toward the open market so he could assess his own price. Serious conversations with three teams besides the Knicks began. Only Houston, which had already cut the Harvard economics major last December, warranted a visit, on July 4. "The Rockets kept saying how sorry they were that that they'd cut him, and how much of a mistake it was," Tanner says. "They almost said it too many times. They kept acknowledging it." 尼克不打算对林提出正式报价，当时没有，或者说，从来都没有。 反而要求他到市场上去衡量自己的价值。 林团队和三支球队谈过。其中只有火箭队正式邀请林在7月4日造访休士顿。 「火箭队一直表示他们非常遗憾当初裁掉他，还有那是个多大的错误。」 经纪人Tanner这麽说。「他们一直唠唠叨叨说个不停，重申那份遗憾。」 Lin left Houston impressed by the effort and the enthusiasm. A backloaded first offer, as widely reported, came to him at four years -- with the fourth as a team option -- and $28.8 million. As news of the offer broke (and Lin's camp says they did not communicate anything to the Knicks before an offer sheet was actually signed), Woodson publicly declared that Lin would "absolutely" be back. But not long after that, the Rockets came back with a revised offer: three years for $25.1 million, with the money rising from $5 million in the first season, to $5.225 million in the second, to $14.898 million in the third. (The relatively low values of the first two annual salaries are as mandated by the Collective Bargaining Agreement's "Gilbert Arenas" provision.) 林离开休士顿时，对火箭队的热诚和努力留下深刻印象。 第一张尾大不掉的合约被广泛报导：4年2千8百万，第四年球队选择权。 合约新闻一传出，武僧立刻公开表示林「绝对」会归队。 （但林的团队表示在签约前，他们从未与尼克讨论过合约） 不久之後，火箭修改了合约，改为3年2千5百万，第三年暴增到近1千5百万。 By this point, Lin had no real idea what the Knicks would do. But there also wasn't much choice: there was all of one offer sheet in front of him to consider. 在这个时候，林完全不知道尼克会怎麽做。 但他也别无选择：眼前只有一张合约让他考虑。 At least, while surfing the Internet last Sunday, Lin read that Felton was reportedly en route to the Knicks from Portland via a sign-and-trade. Earlier this month, New York had already signed Kidd; now, Lin saw the writing on the wall, along with everybody else. "Felton's signing was the first time when I thought, 'Oh, wow, I might not be a Knick,'" Lin says. The next time he heard from an executive in the organization, it was to tell him the Knicks were letting him go. 最後，林是在上周日上网的时候，才从网路上得知Felton正透过先签後换加入尼克。 稍早尼克已经签下Kidd，林现在总算跟其他人一样，看清楚势态的发展。 「看到Felton签约的消息，是我第一次意识到： 『噢，我可能没办法成为尼克人了。』」林这麽说。 接下来他再次从尼克高层听到消息，就是他们放弃他的那通电话。 ***** The last time Lin talked to Knicks owner James Dolan was right before Game 5 of the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs, when New York was down, 3-1, to eventual NBA champion Miami. Lin, who had suffered a meniscus tear in his left knee, had been ruled out for the remainder of the regular season and had already missed the first four games of this playoff series. Now Dolan, with point guard Baron Davis also injured, wondered about Lin's availability. But the matter had already been settled. "Every single vet on our team that has been in the league longer than five years pulled me aside and told me that I shouldn't play," Lin says. "And I had arguments with them about why I should." 林最後一次和老板杜兰谈话，是在季後赛第一轮第五战。 当时林因为半月板伤势缺阵，在Baron Davis受伤後，杜兰询问林是否可上场。 「队上每位资深球员都告诉我不该上场，我还和他们争辩说我应该要上场。」 Dolan -- who didn't talk to Lin often but had generally been "really nice to me" --wound up expressing support. "I have plans for you in the future," Lin recalls the owner saying. "This is a long-term investment. Don't rush back." 杜兰虽然很少和林谈话，但林认为他「一直待我很好」。杜兰对这个决定也表示支持。 林回想当时杜兰说的话：「我对你的未来有计划，这是长期投资，别急着上场。」 At the time, Lin says, he had been sleeping with an ice machine on every night and waking up early to restart it. He couldn't even touch the rim, much less defend. But the morning of Game 5, when asked about his status, he had publicly diagnosed himself at "85 percent" -- a comment he says has since been misunderstood. Lin was not 85 percent healthy, he says, but rather 15 percent away from the absolute minimum threshold to play. "People think it was easy for me to sit there and watch us lose, like I had nothing to do with the season," Lin says. "I was dying to play. I didn't miss a game due to injury in seven years until this past season, and people are acting like I wouldn't want to play in the playoffs? Of the NBA? In my first season?" 林说这段时间，他每晚都睡在制冰器上(冰敷)， 每天一大早再重新启动机器(继续冰敷)。 他碰不到篮框，也无法防守。 但第五战之前，他公开表示自己恢复了百分之85，这话一出便造成许多误解。 其实他不是好了8成5，而是距离上场的最低门槛还差百分之15。 「坐在一旁、眼睁睁看着球队输球，好像这个球季与我无关，人们以为这很轻松。 我想上场想得要死。过去七年我从来没有因伤错过任何一场比赛，除了这一回。 人们却说得一副我不想打NBA季後赛？在我的第一个(季後赛)球季？」 He is happy with his new employer, but less so about the misconceptions that others may now harbor. The notion that Lin has always cared about money above all else, in particular, eats away at him, especially as he sleeps in his childhood home. "If I really wanted to, I could have triple-digit endorsements," Lin points out, but he does not. Instead, and in large part because Lin wanted to concentrate on basketball, he declined to cash in on the Linsanity gold-rush -- namely, the mountain of business opportunities in Asia -- and picked only three companies: Volvo, Steiner Sports, and Nike. 他很开心加入新东家，但是其他人因此对他产生的误解却让他不快乐。 例如林在乎金钱胜於一切的说法，尤其让他躺在童年家中的床上时，辗转反侧。 「如果我真的爱钱，我可以接上百个代言。」林指出这点，但他并未这麽做。 因为林想要专注在篮球场上，所以他推掉了林来疯所引发的淘金热所带来的无限商机。 最後他只接了三个代言：Volvo, Steiner Sports,还有Nike。 "A year ago, I was just trying to stay alive and fight day by day, just to be on a roster," says Lin, who famously slept on couches upon his arrival in New York. "What I have now is way more than I ever would have dreamed of, and way more than I need." What he doesn't have, though -- and what he deeply misses about those magical two months, back when he was atop the sports world -- is something that can't be bought, and likely can't be replicated elsewhere, again. 「一年前，我每天只想奋力在球队轮值里挣得一席之地。 我现在拥有的，远比我梦想的还多，也远超出我实际所需。」 他所无法拥有的，却是用再多钱也买不到、可能永远也无法复制的， 在体坛中心、奇蹟般的两个月。 "I love the New York fans to death," Lin says. "That's the biggest reason why I wanted to return to New York. The way they embraced me, the way they supported us this past season, was better than anything I've ever seen or experienced. I'll go to my grave saying that. What New York did for me was unbelievable. I wanted to play in front of those fans for the rest of my career." 「我爱死纽约球迷了。 那也是我想回到尼克队的最大原因。 他们拥抱我、接受我、过去这个球季给予我的支持， 是我从所未闻、从所未经历过、是最棒的。 直到我入土为安的那一刻，这一点都不会改变。 纽约带给我的一切令人难以置信。 我曾经希望能够一辈子都在这些球迷面前打球。」 --

※ 发信站: 批踢踢实业坊(ptt.cc) ◆ From: 114.24.169.242 同意kerno 对於把彼此当宝的NYK球迷和林来说，这样的结果，是双输(最後一段好催泪)； 但以职业球员的生涯发展来说，加入一支真正需要他、会栽培他的球队， 对球员和球队而言，是双赢。 无论如何，这都不是林能够决定的。 不管Dolan身边的人如何灌输他"林背叛了球队"的荒谬想法，从而做出放弃跟进的决策。 还是谢谢尼克。希望林以後能够快乐打篮球。 ※ LCC11:转录至看板 NBA 07/19 03:27 OK! 烦请标注ID与来源，谢谢！ ※ 编辑: noral 来自: 114.24.170.39 (07/19 08:28)