At the time, Golden State was letting go a little-used guard who spent time in the D-League to clear the way for a $10 million a year offer to DeAndre Jordan, the big-time center the Warriors needed (and still need).
Now, they are the team that had Jeremy Lin and didn’t realize what they had.
That has left Warriors fans asking why team management didn’t recognize what they had and why they didn’t give him an opportunity to have this kind of magical run in the Bay Area.
Here is what Warriors consultant Jerry West said on the Dan Patrick Show (as relayed by Matt Steinmetz at CSNBayArea.com).“He was a very good friend of the owner Joe Lacob and his son, and they played together. And they signed him. And they saw something there in him, and during the process of trying to sign DeAndre Jordan, there were certain players that had to be moved off the roster….
“To me, don’t place blame (for Lin being let go). You give credit. The credit goes to Jeremy. A lot of things in sports are about blame. There’s no blame here. It’s just maybe some people didn’t see what he had inside.”
Mark Jackson never even coached Lin — he couldn’t contact him over the summer and Lin was cut the first day of training camp — is getting the questions, too, even though he had almost nothing to do with it. Here is what he said to 97.5 The Game in San Francisco (via Sports Radio Interviews).
Lin simply did not play this well last year for Golden State. It’s why he was sent to the D-League — he shot 38 percent, he had a league-average PER of 14.8 while using just about 15 percent of the possessions while he was on the floor. He worked hard at his game in the off-season, clearly, but they didn’t take a look because they have Stephen Curry at the point. The Rockets picked him up but they have Kyle Lowry and Goran Dragic at the point and he wasn’t getting chances.
The Knicks had no PG to speak of and Lin’s skill set fits exactly with what they needed. Success for players not named Kobe or LeBron — who can succeed anywhere because of their skill — is about opportunity and fit. Lin improved his game, landed in a spot that was a good fit and great opportunity and took advantage. In the process he proved a lot of people — myself included — wrong about what his ceiling would be. That’s what makes this such a good story.
We Americans love the idea that if given the chance, we all could have that kind of success. And right now, in this economy, we need that story more than ever.