Jeremy Lin’s benching in the Lakers’ game against the San Antonio Spurs on January 23 was the first time for the Harvard graduate while wearing the purple and gold colors of Los Angeles.
The benching was also the first time in Jeremy Lin’s professional basketball career after nearly three years beginning with the time he turned up the heat and created Linsanity with the New York Knicks during the 2011-12 NBA season.
It was actually bad enough that he was demoted from his starting role with the Lakers vice rookie Jordan Clarkson, but what made it worse and historic is that Coach Byron Scott did not inserted him to the game at all.
He told reporters after the game asking him about what he felt for his benching and Jeremy Lin candidly said that nobody would ever feel great after a benching. He added that he’s human and he got emotions. He said the benching definitely hurt him. It was both disappointing and discouraging but he’s still ready to move on from it.
While there are no known issues between the Lin and Byron Scott, basketball aficionados believe that the benching of Jeremy was meant to stir his senses into thinking that he needs to do and play better for the Lakers, especially in the absence of Kobe Bryant.
There are also reports that Lin was benched because the Lakers wanted to preserve his health prior to pulling the trigger on a possible trade before the NBA trading deadline of February 19.
Talking things over
Because he really felt bad having that DNP (did not play) in his record for the first time with the Lakers, Jeremy Lin decided to approach and talk to Byron Scott about it Sunday morning, reports Los Angeles Daily News.
Lin disclosed that he had a good dialogue with Scott where he was told what coach wants him to do on the court and how he can contribute to the team.
Scott played Jeremy Lin on Sunday in the Lakers’ game against the Houston Rockets, Lin’s former team, where the Rockets’ routed the Lakers 99-87 behind the 37 points of James Harden.
Lin scored 14 points on 2 of 9 shooting in 28 minutes and one second of action in the court. But he came off the bench because he already lost his starting position to Ronnie Price.
Jeremy says that he will keep on trying and playing what he is capable of playing regardless of whether the Lakers will keep him or eventually trade him to another team, which is likely.
But until that happens, he will give his best on the floor when called upon to play. Former teammate Dwight Howard of the Rockets thinks that Jeremy is playing an aggressive kind of basketball with the Lakers although he can sense that the Harvard graduate seems to be lost in LA just like he was before he got traded to Houston.