Lin’s advice to Japeth: Pursue your NBA dream

MANILA, Philippines - Jeremy Lin, who rose from mediocrity to become one of the NBA’s rising stars, yesterday advised Gilas Pilipinas mainstay Japeth Aguilar to never lose hope and keep pursuing his NBA dream.

“Really?” said Lin when told that Aguilar had tried and failed in his NBA dream recently. “My advice to him is to not give up, keep on trying and continue to pursue his dream because you’ll never know when you’re time will come.”

Aguilar was evaluated by two NBA scouts in California, one of which is said to be from the San Antonio Spurs, and attended some workouts with D-League teams like Bakersfield Jam.

He ended up working out with another D-League team, the Santa Cruz Warriors drafted him but was eventually waived, forcing him to go back to the PBA and play for the PBA and Gilas Pilipinas, which he helped power to a silver-medal finish in the recent FIBA Asian Championship.

Lin, whose Houston Rockets played with the Indiana Pacers in last night’s first ever NBA pre-season game in the country at the MOA Arena in Pasay City, believes Aguilar’s journey doesn’t end there.

He’s been there before.

After being undrafted out of Harvard University, Lin reached a partially guaranteed contract deal in 2010 with his hometown Golden State Warriors where he seldom played in his rookie season and was re-assigned to the NBA D-League three times. He was then waived by the Rockets and the Warriors the following pre-season before ending up with the New York Knicks as their third, fourth string point guard. He continued to play sparingly and again spent some time in the D-League.

In Feb. 2012, he unexpectedly led a winning streak by New York and got a spot in the starting roster which generated a global following known as “Linsanity.”

Like Lin, NBA commissioner David Stern also encouraged Aguilar – and every Filipino dreaming the NBA dream – to keep on pursuing it.

“As they say, if you want to go somewhere, you got to do three things. Practice, practice, practice,” said Stern, who also graced yesterday’s Indiana-Houston game.

“That’s the first step to realizing dreams,” he added.