Jeremy Lin’s likely one-year stint with the Los Angeles Lakers in the team’s forgettable season proves the calibre of NBA player that the 26-year-old Harvard graduate is.
He is a good player but can never be considered a great player that his one-month Linsanity days in New York almost four years ago projected himself to be capable of evolving into one.
Lin had the chance to prove himself how great a point guard he can become with the Lakers especially since he was brought in from the Houston Rockets on the final year of his $25 million three-year contract and that he was joining the team’s roster of point guards that included Steve Nash, Ronnie Price and Jordan Clarkson.
Steve Nash may have been one of the best point guards in the NBA during his prime but as it turned out, a back injury prevented him from playing a single game in the recently-concluded regular season for the Lakers until he decided to retire for good before the season ended.
Ronnie Price is a known journeyman so nothing was expected of him except to come off the bench and be part of the rotation. Jordan Clarkson on the other hand is a rookie so everything that comes from him is a bonus.
Jeremy Lin had the chance to shine at the point guard position for the Los Angeles Lakers but lo and behold, he turned out even way below the level of expectations that the Lakers and the fans of the Showtime franchise have set on him, cites Silver Screen and Roll.
Groping for form
It was obvious during his first few games with the Lakers, playing alongside Kobe Bryant, made Lin looked like he was lost in the rotation at times or was simply groping for form.
While he showed some flashes of occasional brilliance on some games, he or his game disappears again almost into oblivion on the next game. He can be aggressive on one game and totally become the opposite on the next.
The inconsistency was quite obvious that Byron Scott even took him out of the starting lineup. And as if to make his statement more pronounced, Scott even benched him for one game.
Subsequently, he was relegated to the second stringer position. It was when he was coming off the bench and also during the time when Kobe Bryant was already out for the rest of the season to recuperate from his surgery that Lin showed some upgraded level of aggressiveness.
Not an All-Star player
Despite showing some elevated level of aggressiveness after the NBA All-Star break, Jeremy Lin was far from a great player or an NBA All-Star calibre player that he was once touted to be during his Linsanity days.
He had the chance to show his true worth with the Lakers struggling to get a victory in all its games this past regular season but Lin is not a go-to-guy kind of player that the likes of Rajon Rondo, Tony Parker, Stephen Curry, Jeff Teague, and other current premiere point guards of the league are.