Built to win — with more from Lin
First real shot at deep run with freedom on the floor remains work in progress
There really isn’t much that Jeremy Lin hasn’t experienced in his NBA career.
He has been cut and released and bounced around, and he has been at the centre of Linsanity, a crazy few months when he took New York City by storm seven years ago.
He has been injured and frustrated and unable to do what he knows he can because of physical difficulties, and it has gnawed at him.
And now here he is in Toronto, the eighth NBA franchise he’s represented in nine years and there’s a whole new level of issues to deal with.
Lin has never had as good a chance to have a deep run in the playoffs. He’s never had a group of veteran, talented teammates focused solely on winning an NBA title. He’s had freedom before but never on a very good team, and it’s all a little bit new and unexpected.
And a little bit hard to get used to in quick order.
“I am seeing that I have to reverse a lot of my mindset in terms of just the freedom I have on the floor and the empowerment,” Lin told reporters after the Raptors practised for the final time before meeting the New Orleans Pelicans on Friday night.
“(Coach Nick Nurse) has done a great job of opening that up and it’s my job to step into that. That is my responsibility to step inside that door he has opened for me.
“Again it’s definitely a mindset shift in terms of how to play the game and all that. It’s different and been a while since I’ve had that kind of freedom.”
Dealing with that freedom — accepting it, thriving under it — has proven to be harder than he’d thought. Old habits have to be broken, a new coaching voice has to be learned, new teammates have to be satisfied.
And as much as Lin has to understand it, so too does his coach. After all, one of Nurse’s primary responsibilities is putting his players into situations in which they can thrive.
“I say to him, ‘Jeremy, hey, call something. You know, you get the ball in your hands and you look like you don’t know what you want to do out there,’ ” Nurse said. “I say, ‘You don’t have to look at me, just call this, this or this. Pick one.’
“And he’s got to get a little more comfortable. Even though I’ve tried to shorten it down to three things, he’s so new that he can’t quite come up with one. I need to give him more help. I need to give him more help until he’s more comfortable with that.”
Lin has struggled with his shooting with the Raptors — 30 per cent from the field through Thursday, 0-for-17 from threepoint range — but there’s too much historical evidence to suggest he’ll be mired in this slump for much longer.
He works on his shot constantly, he’s getting good looks. No one connected with the team is too worried about that.
It’s the other stuff, like the fit and the feel and the comfort level that has to get better in the stretch run to the playoffs.
Lin is smart enough to know that he’s in a unique position, and the Raptors are smart enough to know he’s an asset. It’s all about marrying role and intelligence and understanding the stakes.
“How do I say this the right way?” Nurse said.
“I think the intensity with which our games are played at he needs to get used to as well. The way teams play us and the games we’ve been in here with really quality teams, they’re pretty high level and he needs to get used to the physicality of that.
“And he will. He’s tough.”