Jeremy Lin was an acquisition from the Houston Rockets. Along with the trade, came a future first round pick and a second round pick for 2015. If there was an off-season steal for the Lakers this is it. The Lakers gave up the rights to Sergei Lishchuk to the Rockets. The idea was to build cap space for the Houston Rockets in order to acquire Chris Bosh through free agency.
That didn’t happen, and the Lakers came out the winners here.
The Lakers were desperate for a starting point guard, especially when Steve Blake got traded.
Yesterday, he was interviewed by Time Warner Cable Sports Net’s own Chris McGee and James Worthy.
He spoke about his role with the Lakers this upcoming season.
"This season I definitely want to be aggressive, be a play-maker. I just want to be dynamic and explosive in different ways… I just want to bring it defensively and try to build, I worked a lot on this in the off-sesaon. So hopefully being able to chase some of these other guards around and make it hard for them. That’s my goal."
On working with Steve Nash:
"It’s everything. There’s just certain experiences or certain people where you just can’t recreate it as much as you try. What I’m going to learn from him, I just can’t recreate from anybody else. Just to see him, how he works, what he does, how he reads the defense, even his approach to the game. I just think that there is so much to learn that for him to have the career that he’s had, it’s a no brainer to soak up as much information as you can."
What he worked on this summer:
"I would say that there’s three things, one of them is defense. I want to be a great defender. Two, I want to be consistent. I want to be deadly from the three-point line. Three, is just my left hand."
What kind of threat he is for the team:
"Like you said, I think my bread and butter will always be attacking the basket. I think, just to become smarter, cutting down on the turnovers, being able to hit a shot more consistently, make better decisions. I think the more consistently and efficiently you do things, the tougher it is just to guard you over the course of 48 minutes, versus one stretch where you’re playing well, one stretch you’re struggling, just trying to maintain that level throughout."
There’s no doubt that Jeremy Lin is the right point guard for the Lakers. They have lacked a real attacking point guard since the days of Nick Van Exel in the early-to-mid 1990’s. Now, the team has a player who is willing to play aggressive, yet still be unselfish and looks to continuously improve on both ends of the floor.
Do you think Jeremy Lin is coming into the Laker season with the right mindset? Is there something else you wish he had worked on this off-season? Please let us know in the comments below.