During an appearance on the Jim Rome Show Saturday, ex-Warriors coach Eric Musselman had high praise for Jeremy Lin. Musselman, who coached Lin during his tenure as Reno Bighorns head coach called Lin the best dribble-drive player he’d coached since Gilbert Arenas was in his prime. Musselman said this to Rome:
“If I had to say one or two things that stood out, he is the best dribble-drive player that I’ve personally ever coached, other than Gilbert Arenas when he was in his prime his second year n Golden State. He has an unbelievable ability to get by his defender and also figure out a way to finish in traffic when he’s going against the second line of defense.”
Considering that this is a man who coaches in the League and isn’t prone to making outrageous statements, his opinion speaks volumes about Lin’s ability. Dribble-drive players are skilled at getting into the lane and creating, which is exactly how Lin has made his mark with the Knicks. This isn’t a fluke. Musselman also shed interesting light on what he believes led teams to miss on Lin.
“I really believe the lockout(was the cause). And when I say the lockout, here’s a player who played his rookie season in the D-League. Didn’t get any NBA experience to speak of. So going into his second year in the summer he would have had seven to eight, maybe even nine summer league games at the Vegas summer league at the Vegas Summer League for teams to evaluate him, as well as his own team Golden State and then you add in the fact that normally there’s seven or six exhibition games along with a month of training camp and a player like Jeremy slipped through the cracks, I think, because of the circumstances of this off-season.”
He was an undrafted rookie in 2010, so he was likely still getting acclimated to the speed of the pro game but that makes plenty of sense. Lin missed a plethora of opportunities to showcase his improvement this season. Musselman also said that teams were asking about Lin last season so it’s not that they weren’t interested at all. Since February 5th when he made his debut, Lin has scored more points than anyone in the NBA.
If you just watched Frank Ocean’s favorite player, Steve Novak(cane) fire net-seeking missiles from downtown earlier throne while Melo and Amare were out, then you might be interested to know that Novak also played on the Bighorns with Lin last season. The two have carried their rapport over from the D-League to Madison Square Garden.
Lin provided another 28 points and 14 assists today while, the Lakers are stuck weighing their options in regards to signing the Robocop version of Gilbert Arenas. Now if you’ll excuse me I’ve got to get back to debating whether Bruce Lee could have been an All-Defensive First Team point guard.
