Charlotte Hornets point guard Jeremy Lin opened up to his fans in a long and heartfelt Facebook post last week that addressed his experiences dealing with professional and academic pressure, as well as suicides in his high school.

Lin wrote that his reflections were prompted by the cover of this month’s Atlantic magazine, “The Silicon Valley Suicides,” a report of how expectations on high school students in the tech mecca could drive them to the brink of a dangerous — and sometimes fatal — depression.

“The pressure to succeed in high school is all too familiar to me,” wrote Lin, a graduate of Palo Alto High School on the edge of Silicon Valley.

He went on:

My daily thought process was that every homework assignment, every project, every test could be the difference. The difference between a great college and a mediocre college. The difference between success and failure. The difference between happiness and misery.

Although startling in its honesty, this meditation is apt coming from an NBA player whose career has seen its share of extreme highs and lows.

As a shooting guard playing for the basketball team at Palo Alto High School, he wasn’t offered any athletic scholarships by Division I schools. Bill Holden, an assistant coach at Harvard University, which doesn’t have athletic scholarships, initially regarded him as “like any other average high school player” and told him to consider Division III.

Read the article “NBA Star Jeremy Lin Grapples with Academic Pressure, Teen Suicides in Personal Facebook Post” on washingtonpost.com.