He’s past 30, his production has suffered this past season, he lacks the explosiveness of his best campaigns and there are questions about his durability.
But hey, enough about Jeff Teague, we’re here to talk Jeremy Lin.
I kid, but seriously, there’s probably no better example of the kind of routine beneift of the doubt established players in the league typically receive, and Lin simply never has, than the difference between Teague’s current contract, a three-year, $57 million deal that included a fourth-year option at $19 million he opted into this summer, and Lin, who remains unsigned as the calendar turns to August tomorrow.
Lin’s true shooting percentage, his turnover rate, his defensive win shares were all superior to Teague’s in 2018-19. This was true including his difficult time in Toronto, but especially so comparing his role in Atlanta, where he had a training camp and full buy-in from the coaching staff, to Teague’s full season in Minnesota.
All of which is not to denigrate Teague, a clearly capable point guard who has a job in the NBA and should.
But Jeremy Lin, now 30, having done all that’s been asked of him at every stop, can be forgiven for wondering why he’s needed to prove himself, over and over and over again.
Lin’s honestly is refreshing. He’s spent the past several years with a greater understanding of the role he plays, the ways his openness publicly will help advance the cause of Asian-Americans in the NBA by seeing the challenges as well as the success. It’s also, at some level, unfair that Lin must carry these burdens with him while building a career. But he understands that is not his choice to make, it has been made for him, and so he has embraced it.
And that’s why this 30-year-old with a true shooting percentage north of 55%, with a proven track record as a distributor, got a multi-year contract on the free agent market to help a team in 2019-20 as a veteran point guard —
Wait, no, I’m sorry, that was Derrick Rose and his two-year, $15 million deal in Detroit.
It’s a simple construct for many fans of Lin: he doesn’t get the opportunities other players at his skill level and proven track record do at every turn, therefore it must be racism.
The answer is almost certainly more complicated than that. Teams who believed Lin could help them would sign him. The imperative to win is greater than almost anything else in the NBA.
But there’s a second-order question: why are NBA talent evaluators looking at Lin and NOT seeing what he brings to the table, from his undrafted status out of college through every single time he’s hit the market?
In a league where potential and performance are both rewarded, Lin’s ample supply of both have been minimized at every turn, the potential dismissed, the performance parsed for weaknesses alone.
At least there’s a happy ending: the guy with the strong regular season in 2018-19, but who was marginalized during his team’s Eastern Conference playoff run has finally found a home, a two-year, $7 million contract with the Indiana Pacers to bring his basketball IQ and mentoring ability to a roster in need of both. Congratulations to —
Oh, sorry. That was T.J. McConnell, whose true shooting percentage, assist percentage, turnover percentage, you name it were virtually identical to Jeremy Lin’s.
No wonder Jeremy Lin wonders. No wonder so many others do, too.
