Jeremy Lin’s Success Reaches Far Outside Of Brooklyn
By Wardell
Resurgences come in the unlikeliest of places
After years of taking the back seat, Jeremy Lin made the decision to accept a $36 million deal with the Brooklyn Nets. Effectively making him a full-time starter in this league… or at least, it was supposed to.
Lin knew he was joining a team that has been deprived of any near all-star talent outside of Brook Lopez since they dealt for Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Jason Terry. Their cap situation has been a disaster, and those three never made this team into a serious contender. Far from it in fact. He knew damn-well that wasn’t joining a team that would be vying for a playoff spot. But he also wasn’t joining a team that was prepping the almighty tank. How could they; Boston still have the rights to swap first picks this season and, of course, the Celtics are currently the top seed in the Eastern Conference.
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Brooklyn wasn’t going to reach the postseason, but they were going to play their hardest every night in the hopes of winning. Jeremy Lin was a big part of that hope, especially considering he’d be paired with Lopez, creating the Brook-Lin duo. Something Nets fans took to very, very quickly.
Lin’s first two performances with his newest team drew something we haven’t really seen in Brooklyn, something we haven’t really seen in the Nets franchise in quite some time. The fan-base had hope. Game one, he put up 18 points, three assists and three rebounds, while shooting 6-14 from the field. Not spectacular, but it was a large difference from the individual productions of Jarrett Jack, Shane Larkin and Donald Sloan, who split the team’s starts the season before. But that second game was, as Nets head coach Kenny Atkinson – who worked closely with Lin as an assistant coach for the New York Knicks in 2012 – put it, “pretty special.”
Brooklyn’s home-opener was a match-up against the Indiana Pacers, against whom they were only 2-3 against in home openers all-time going into the game. The Nets headed into the second half with a four point lead, but found themselves down by seven after the third quarter. But they did manage to come back in the fourth and went on to win, 103-94… yada, yada.
The game itself wasn’t the story, Jeremy Lin was, who put up 21 points, nine rebounds and nine assists, while shooting 6-12 from the field and 2-4 from beyond the arc. A performance that stood as a hopeful sign of what was to come in Jeremy Lin’s tenure with the Nets.
Thing is, Lin would find it difficult to ever even reach the floor.
Only five games into his start with the Nets, while putting up some of the best numbers of his career, Lin went down with a strain left hamstring that sidelined him for 40 days. He returned, in limited fashion, for seven games until he once again suffered a strained left hamstring. There was hope he’d return by mid-to-late January, but he re-aggravated the injury while in recovery.
It wouldn’t be until February 24, when he once again started playing in-game with the team, and not until March when he started playing meaningful minutes. That’s when Brooklyn started to realize how much an impact Lin would’ve made for them.
Let’s first just go over his individual production. In his 16 games as a starter in the month of March, Lin averaged 14.4 points, 4.5 assists, 3.5 rebounds and 0.9 steals. Not exactly eye-popping, but you have to realize that he only averaged 23.6 minutes of playing time on those 16 games. Push it to per 36 minutes (which, considering he plays for the Nets, is likely the playing time Brooklyn hopes he can play per game) and those numbers climb to 22.1 points, 6.9 assists, 5.4 rebounds and 1.4 steals.
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His best brand of basketball since his breakout performance with the Knicks. Also a high for him since New York, his usage percentage, which hit a solid 28.6 percent (per BasketballReference). That’s not to say his play was all good though, he did have a defensive rating of 108 and per 100 possessions he had 4.5 turnovers (per NBA.com), which isn’t great… or good for that matter. But his affect on the team seemed to far outweigh his (fairly solid) individual performance.
On the season the Nets currently hold a record of 19-59, good for worst in the NBA. But in the month of March, with Lin back in the line-up, the Nets went 7-10. I don’t know if you can do simple math, but that’s damn-near half their wins in one month – 43.7 percent to be exact. (Don’t worry, my math is right. Brooklyn had 16 wins at the end of March, they got another win on April 1, against the Magic.)
It seems pretty fair to say that Jeremy Lin coming back had a pretty large effect on the team, and that if he’d been healthy all season, maybe the Nets wouldn’t have the highest odds of winning the draft lottery, which, if you remember, the Boston Celtics currently own the rights to swap with their own first round pick. I’m not saying playoff caliber, but they’d have been much better off had Lin not gotten injured.
There is, however, still an upside to this if you’re the Nets. They signed Lin to a for a relatively cheap deal and if he can continue playing the way he has, and continues to have the effect on the team that he has, then he’d prove to be more than worth his $36 million deal. His bargain deal also means they’ll have cap space this Summer, which is slated to be one of the most talent-heavy free agency class in years.
That, in turn, allows Brooklyn to go all-in for a few players who could greatly help their team. The better their team is next season, the worse their draft pick will be, which is a good thing knowing the Celtics own the rights to the Nets’ 2018 first rounder, outright.
Best case scenario, the Nets add-on enough talent (hopefully an all-star) to earn a low seed in the playoffs, effectively eliminating any chances for the Celtics winning the top pick in the 2018 draft. You could be asking yourself, “how exactly is Brooklyn going to woo any top-tier free agents?”
Well, it’d do you well to remember that New York is a huge market that’s a pretty big draw to players, because well… money talks. And it’s not exactly that apparent that the Nets will have much in-state competition during free agency due to the absolute garbage fire that is the New York Knicks.
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There’s is still a chance that the Brooklyn Nets can turn their franchise around, much like Jeremy Lin did for his career. It’ll just take a couple of lucky breaks to go along with solid planning to fall their way and they may find themselves vying for a playoff spot sooner than we all expected. Even if not, Brooklyn will still be an iconic borough for basketball (I mean, it’s the place where Larry Brown, Taj Gibson, Mark Jackson, Billy Cunningham, Mike Dunleavy Sr., Connie Hawkins and Bernard King were born and raised).
It always will be. Just like Jeremy Lin has, and always will be an icon amongst Asians and Asian-Americans. Just like I will always hear, “Go check-up Jeremy Lin,” in a game of pickup. Nothing can change that. I don’t want it to.