Jeremy Lin appears to have made the right decision in joining the Charlotte Hornets. While he comes off the bench and is part of the team’s second unit, he is also part of the reason why the Hornets is now the No. 6 in the NBA in terms of bench-scoring.
At an even 4-4 win-loss slate going into the November 13 game against the Chicago Bulls, the Hornets has strung up three consecutive victories after a shaky start in the current 2015-16 NBA season.
Averaging about 13 points a game during his eight outings with the Hornets, Jeremy Lin is on pace to eclipse his stats during his three-year stint with the Houston Rockets and the Los Angeles Lakers, notes the International Business Times.
The 27-year-old Harvard graduate has stepped up his game big time in Charlotte that he seems to have flourished under head coach Steve Clifford as one of the team’s star reserves.
He is currently averaging a little over 22 minutes of playing time but if he stays the course and keeps his level of play, Lin expects to get more minutes from Clifford.
No pressure coming off the bench
However, he should not be expecting to be inserted to the starting five lineup vice Kemba Walker very soon as it seems that Clifford is already sold to the idea that Walker should always start at the point. It is also good for Jeremy Lin in a way because it takes the pressure off him.
While there have been previous reports that Clifford will insert them both in the starting lineup, it has still not happened during the early phase of the current season. As a coach, it would be foolhardy for Clifford to tinker and experiment with his starting lineup especially if the current set-up and rotation are working well for the team. He would probably need to make the adjustment as he sees fit.
With his current performance with the Hornets, basketball aficionados are now saying that Jeremy Lin has found the perfect coach in Clifford after Mike D’Antoni, who was his coach with the New York Knicks back in the 2011-12 season where he briefly showcased his Linsanity days.
Clifford actually praised Jeremy Lin for the team’s recent road victory over the resurgent Minnesota Timberwolves not for his offense but for his defense on Minnesota’s prolific shooter Kevin Martin.
The Hornets head coach said that he was looking for a way to reinsert Jeremy Lamb in the fourth quarter, but Jeremy Lin was doing an excellent job on Kevin Martin so he decided to stick with him on the floor to finish the game. He said that the team’s second unit is playing so well that he will not be hesitant to finish the game with them on the floor.
An underpaid player
For the last three years, Jeremy Lin was considered an overpaid player in the NBA given his level of play and his degree of importance to his team.
With a $25 million three-year contract that the Houston Rockets have given him at the start of the 2012-13 season and assumed on the third year by the Los Angeles Lakers, Jeremy Lin was considered ridiculously overpaid because he was not performing up to par.
His $8.5 million per year contract was not really that much considering that average role players in the NBA command about $10 million per year. The criticisms were more because he is part Asian, according to some reports.
So when he agreed to sign up with Charlotte Hornets during the offseason as a free agent for $4.37 million for two years, Jeremy Lin, in fact, agreed to be paid $2.18 million per season, a steep drop from his $8.5 million per year salary over the past three years.
But it seems that Lin is not bothered at all by his decision to accept a lower salary because it certainly took the pressure off him. Now, he is playing his game minus the criticisms of being overpaid.