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After more than five weeks, Jeremy Lin is likely to return to action Monday when the Nets take the court vs. the Houston Rockets at the Toyota Center.
The Nets broke the news by Twitter...
#Nets Injury Report at HOU: J. Lin- PROBABLE (strained left hamstring), J. Hamilton- QUESTIONABLE (migraine), C. McCullough- OUT (D-League) pic.twitter.com/eOKkK9fqMF
— Brooklyn Nets (@BrooklynNets) December 11, 2016
Lin began practicing Friday and both he and Kenny Atkinson had sought to temper expectations since. At Saturday’s shootaround, Lin was asked if he’d like to face his former teams, the Rockets and the Lakers, this week.
“No, my health is most important,” Lin said at the morning shootaround before the Spurs game. “It doesn’t matter who we’re playing, I’m going to make sure I make a good decision.”
Atkinson agreed.
“I’m going to completely follow the advice of the performance team and Jeremy and figure that out,” he said when pressed for a return date.
“He wants to play 40 minutes the first game, he’s already told me. But I don’t think that’s happening. We’ll just do the most intelligent thing and in terms of what the best thing is coming back from an injury like that.”
That suggests Lin will be on a minutes restriction, which Lin has said he expects. No word yet on what those restrictions will entail.
If Hamilton isn’t ruled out of Monday’s game, it will be the first time all season that all the Nets are healthy. The Nets are 4-13 without Lin, 2-13 with him. In the interim, the Nets have used Greivis Vasquez, Sean Kilpatrick, Spencer Dinwiddie, and Yogi Ferrell at the point. In those five plus weeks, the Nets have waived Vasquez and Ferrell and signed Dinwiddie.