Los Angeles Lakers: The All-Time “Tom Brady” team
By Ronald Agers
Jeremy Lin played one year with the Los Angeles Lakers. That’s it.
Jeremy Lin only played for one season for the Los Angeles Lakers back in 2014-15. This was a couple of years deep in the dysfunction of the Mitch Kupchak/Jim Buss era. They had the audacity to bring in a ball-dominant, shoot-first point guard to pair with Kobe Bryant. At least this was a one year deal instead of the long-term deal Luol Deng got.
That pairing had no chance of working considering Lin ran the point guard position and Kobe always had the ball in his hands. See the problem here? By the time, Jeremy Lin got to the Lakers, his confidence was ruined by the Houston Rockets. Kobe didn’t help in boosting his confidence.
Then Wayne Ellington shined the light on a trash-talking episode that sums up the Lakers season for the starting backcourt.
"Jeremy Lin and Kobe were trash-talking each other… and J-Lin was like ‘Kobe, you know, I’m not scared of you, man. Only person I’m scared of is God. Kobe looked at him and said ‘Yeah… me, God, Yeah…’"
Well, things never got better. The two combined to be one of the most inefficient backcourts in the NBA that season. Bryant averaged 22.3 points per game on 37.3 percent shooting while ranking third in the team in field goal attempts.
He probably would have been ranked first by a country mile if he hadn’t despite missed 47 games. Lin wasn’t much better shooting 42.4 percent from the field and led the team in turnovers. Let’s just say that Lin was frustrated at times.
That Lakers squad finished 21-61, and couldn’t stop seemingly anyone in the NBA. 29th in points allowed and the defensive rating was something that drove Byron Scott nuts at times.
Lin’s defining moment was when he waved off Kobe Bryant and knocked down a 3-point shot over Chris Paul against the Clippers. That was the high point.
The low point was the Memphis game when Byron Scott, Jeremy Lin and Bryant did not get the plan in sync for fouling Mike Conley at the end of the game. Time ran down, Kobe looked exasperated and Lin ended up looking bad.
Kobe screaming at him afterward didn’t help.
Bad fit, bad coaching, bad signing. Even Jeremy Lin would agree.
The last player is just a shocker.