Nets’ LeVert helping to bring game to Asia

Caris LeVert’s trek last year for Jeremy Lin’s basketball camp in Taiwan left the young Nets guard intrigued with Asia and hoping to see other parts of the continent. He’s getting that chance now, running clinics in India for Basketball Without Borders and inspiring a new generation of international ballers.

“I came to Asia last year for Jeremy Lin’s camp, and I thought it was cool. I wanted to come back to Asia and explore other parts,” LeVert said via phone. “So when the opportunity presented itself this was definitely something I wanted to do for sure, especially help out with the kids.”

LeVert has been in New Delhi for the past three days along with Nets assistant coach Bret Brielmaier. and is impressed by both the campers’ hunger for knowledge (translating questions on their phones) and love of the NBA (Lin especially).

“Absolutely. You never know who is watching, how big the world actually is,” LeVert said. “There’s a lot of people out here who have the same dreams I had when I was there age that are really talented, and a lot of kids look up to us and really are watching every move that we do. For us it inspires us to be great.

“When I say the name Jeremy Lin, their faces light up.”

LeVert said Lin, his backcourt mate, is progressing well after knee surgery. Lin ruptured his patellar tendon on Opening Night and missed the rest of this past season, but less than eight months later, the veteran point guard is going fullspeed in drills, albeit noncontact for now.

After Jahlil Okafor got caught up in the flap over 76ers general manager Bryan Colangelo reportedly using a burner twitter account to imply that Okafor had failed a trade physical, the 22-year-old Nets center declined comment.

“Jahlil has no comment. He’s in a good frame of mine, good spirit just focusing on him,” Okafor’s father, Chukwudi, told the Post. “Myself, him and his agent are going to watch it, see how it plays out. It’s crazy. But other than that, I don’t have anything for you.”