NEW YORK, July 21 — As a throng of Chinese reporters crowded in front of him, Jeremy Lin briefly cast his eyes toward the distant skyline of Manhattan, the birthplace of Linsanity.

It has been four years since Lin seemed to inspire New Yorkers and Asians around the world with his mystical, mythical string of performances with the New York Knicks.

But now, as a member of the Brooklyn Nets, Lin says he has a different perspective on his fame and his popularity as the first American-born basketball player of Taiwanese or Chinese descent in the NBA.

"When it first started, I’m not going to lie, it was cool, and then it became a burden,” Lin said at the Nets’ practice facility in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. "I didn’t really know what I had gotten myself into. One, two, three, four years later, every year I embrace it more. Every year I’m more appreciative, every year I love it more.”

At 27, it is no longer enough to be just a leader for the Nets on the floor. "Chinese people, Asian-Americans, Asians, they always have a special place in my heart,” he said. "Coming back here, I want to be able to try to inspire the next generation, reach out in the community.”

A Harvard graduate and son of Taiwanese immigrants, Lin became an empowering figure not only for Asians, but for underdogs, long-suffering Knicks fans and New Yorkers mired in the doldrums in February, 2012. The team’s leader, Carmelo Anthony, was injured when Lin started a turnaround.

Andrew Kuo, a New York-born artist and ardent Jeremy Lin fan who has ‘Linsanity No. 17’ tattooed on his forearm, in New York July 20, 2016. — Picture by Santiago Mejia/The New York Times

Enter Lin, a journeyman who had been cut by two teams. Linsanity, in all its glorious euphoria, erupted.

And then, several weeks later, Lin’s run was over, cut short by a season-ending knee injury, combined with the resignation of his coach, Mike D’Antoni. After the season, the Knicks allowed Lin to depart to the Houston Rockets via free agency.

"As soon as he took off that New York uniform, that magic was gone,” said Andrew Kuo, 38, a New York-born artist and ardent Lin fan.

The Lin-related artefacts of that time, like the sandwiches once named for him, grew stale. The puns faded from the lexicon.

"The Lin memes are done, it’s OK, it’s extinct now,” Kuo said.

There is, however, the matter of that "Linsanity No. 17” tattoo on his left forearm. Kuo laughed and said that it might have been dumb. "But it’s nice to look down and remember it all,” he added.

Lin recalled how he wished he had stopped to enjoy that heady time more while it was swirling around him. As for Linsanity, he may have won the trademark, but he has mixed feelings about it; he does not intend to revive it.

Jeremy Lin is introduced with new teammates during a news conference at the team’s practice facility in New York July 20, 2016. — Picture by Santiago Mejia/The New York Times

"Not in a way that I’m offended, but it kind of dehumanises me to refer to me as a phenomenon,” he said. "I’m going to be here, keep playing my game, and whatever you guys want to call it, it’s up to you guys.”

It was typical humility from a man who at the start of his Knicks career in 2012 was sleeping on his brother’s couch. In what seemed a quaint bookend to that time, Lin and his trainer, Josh Fan, stayed at an Airbnb rental on Tuesday night, just so they could be near the practice facility in Brooklyn. They turned down the Nets’ offer of a hotel room.

Lin, wearing a new hairstyle featuring tight braids atop his head, was officially introduced on a podium along with five other offseason acquisitions. Yet it is his celebrity that gives the bottom-feeding Nets franchise an instant marketing boost while in what is otherwise a rebuilding mode.

Lin’s presence is sure to create ripples along Manhattan-Brooklyn fault lines, even though his fame transcends that rivalry, uniting fans from California to Australia and to Taiwan, where he holds summer basketball camps. He recently returned from his annual visit.

"He’s got a lot of fans there,” said Timothy J. Hwang, the New York bureau chief for Central News Network of Taiwan, who was among two-dozen Chinese journalists covering Lin’s news conference. (Lin gave his first interview in Mandarin.)

"He attracts a lot of attention, especially for the younger generation,” Hwang said. "Basketball is the most popular sport in Taiwan.”

A pastry dedicated to Jeremy Lin at Pacificana, a dim sum restaurant in Brooklyn July 19, 2016. — Picture by Santiago Mejia/The New York Times

By moving back to the city with the largest Chinese population anywhere outside of Asia — 573,388 residents according to the latest US census figures, from 2014 — Lin will certainly gain a broader, brighter spotlight.

"I think he belongs in New York,” said Jimmy Ching, 51, the proprietor of Pacificana, a sprawling dim sum palace in Sunset Park. Last year, Ching tuned all of the restaurant’s 10 television screens to Knicks games when Lin played against them as a member of the Charlotte Hornets.

"When he was at the Knicks, it was this momentum and the people and the whole area were rooting for him,” Ching added. "You see it in the Chinese communities. You see it in Brooklyn Chinese community, you see it in Manhattan Chinese community, you see it in the Flushing community. For that to happen, it was something. We pulled together.”

Lin’s most ardent supporters see a different player now than the relentless, sometimes reckless, guard who once tried to prove his worth.

"The definition of Linsanity may have evolved,” said KP Chan, 68, a retired banker who lives in Queens. "That was just sheer madness, that was epiphany. All the stars were aligned and all of a sudden, he had this breakout out of nowhere. But he has become a much more well-rounded, more complete player.” — The New York Times