Jeremy Lin: I wanted to stay with the Knicks for my whole career

Jeremy Lin is on the cover of the November issue of GQ and he has a message for all the jilted Knicks fans: it's not you, it's me.

In released excerpts of the interview, Lin said that he wanted to be a member of the Knicks for the rest of his career, partly because of the fan response to his sudden rise from obscurity.

"You can't ask for a city or a fan base to embrace somebody more than they embraced me," Lin said. "I know it's kind of silly to talk about it with only two years under my belt in the league, but going in before free agency, I was like, 'I want to play in front of these fans for the rest of my career.' I really did. I really wanted to play in front of the Madison Square Garden fans for the rest of my career, because they're just unbelievable."

Of course that's not how things worked out. Lin signed with the Houston Rockets during the offseason, a move he said surprised even the Rockets.

"The Rockets thought I was going to be a Knick," Lin said. "They told me when I signed there, 'We think it's an 80 to 95 percent chance of that happening.' That was consistent with what everyone was saying to me."

But the article isn't all a re-hash of the summer drama that saw Lin trade the Big Apple for a big paycheck. He also discusses his style of play, what lies ahead and the factor race plays in his life.

"There's a lot of perceptions and stereotypes of Asian-Americans that are out there today, and the fact that I'm Asian-American makes [my rise] harder to believe, even crazier, more unexpected," he said. "I'm going to have to play well for a longer period of time for certain people to believe it, because I'm Asian. And that's just the reality of it."

The November issue of GQ hits newsstands on Oct. 23.