“He’s a guy that I think intrigued a lot of scouts,” said NBA Assistant Director of Scouting Ryan Blake (pictured) [of Jeremy Lin]. “He wasn’t the top scorer, wasn’t the top assists leader, but he did all the right things, and I think that’s a plus, especially when you get into an environment like that.” This is what The Harvard Crimson’s staff writer Dennis Zheng wrote in his article (linked below).

“I talked to the players before the tournament and said this to all of them, ‘Listen, these teams know you can score, they want to know if you can play basketball’—and I think he proved that this week,” Blake added.

“I really like him, I think he has an opportunity, but we also had a lot of strong point guards in this tournament,” Blake said. “Could we see him in the NBA? Yes, absolutely I could see him in the NBA at some point…Will he get drafted? I don’t know…We have so many players that it’s such a fine line between making it and not making it.”

read more from "Portsmouth prospecting: what they said about Jeremy Lin"

The good news is, Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress was impressed enough by Jeremy Lin last night that he didn’t mention Nic Wise. The bad news is, DraftExpress had some criticisms about Jeremy’s game that I don’t necessarily agree with.

Please note, I have the utmost respect for Givony and his expertise on the draft. The man has so many draft connections, European teams fly him into the Czech Republic so that he can give them feedback on players. He’s earned that. But that doesn’t mean I have to agree with him. After all, I know basketball from where I come from, too. It’s okay to disagree. You win some, you lose some.

For example, DraftExpress said that Jeremy “struggled at times to get by his man”. Well, maybe there are different plays I’m remembering.

There was one with the shotclock winding down, and Jeremy had the ball no more than 3 yards away from where I was sitting courtside, right baseline corner.

No one was cutting and the big man couldn’t post up, so he left the lane open for Jeremy. A quick jab right, show ball fake left and big right step later, he was two steps by the guy to the rim, then shielding the help big, and making the layup.

With what I’ve seen in the Jeremy highlight reels from this season, I also cannot agree with the statement that “his physical tools appear to be just average”. Did you watch Goran Dragic last night on ESPN? Is he “average” physically? Can you still be “average” and be a solid NBA rotation player, even with a spark of future leadership?

But as I’ve often said before, such definitions of “athleticism” amongst various draft boards as well as the general public need to be addressed in a separate rant.

Or is our expectation of Jeremy’s athleticism in question here? I’m sure someone could write a PhD thesis about this.

Here’s the full excerpt on Jeremy. The link is below the excerpt:

“Jeremy Lin had a solid first outing, showing his excellent feel for the game, unselfishness and court vision, particularly in transition finding teammates creatively. Lin struggled a bit at times to get by his man and finish around the basket, as his physical tools appear to be just average, but his size and playmaking ability were clearly evident. Lin didn’t score much, converting just 4-9 from the field to go along with his six assists, and might need to show more potential as a perimeter shooter after making just 34% of his 3-pointers this season. That might be easier said than done playing alongside the very ball dominant Aubrey Coleman though, as there were quite a few possessions where he was just standing around watching Coleman dribble.”

Read the whole article here: DraftExpress: Portsmouth Invitational Tournament, Day One

[NOTE: I put Givony's mug shot here not to put him up as a target or anything. Quite the contrary, he was gracious enough to meet me in person during my last visit to NYC, and he's a really nice guy and knows his business like the back of his hand. He is definitely a foremost expert on the NBA Draft, a subject I am now fascinated by.

I figured with the depth and breadth of Jeremy Lin posts here, I don't know about you, but I'm out of JL4 pictures to post, so each Jeremy post needs to show something different.

And yeah, it's better to have some kind of photo each time, since this blog directly links to Facebook and, well, you know their walled garden, it's all about their thumbnails!]

I’m one of the few that’s seen him play against NBA-caliber players before yesterday, so I knew what he was capable of. In a stifly Ivy League conference and with teammates not good enough to be in the right place at the right time, i.e., during his entire college career, you only saw glimpses of this. The no-look zinger from the far baseline to an open big man for layup. The early offense lob to a cutter coming in from the blind side. The sleepy lull just before halftime, baiting you into thinking he was going to keep the ball and try for a last-second shot, when really he was waiting for some other obstacle to move before a bullet pass hit a man under the hoop at the last possible moment.

Jeremy Lin tallied 6 assists in just 25 minutes of play. There were two instances where he could’ve had assist #7 and #8, but UNI’s Adam Koch was too slow (reminds me of Ivy League play) and another guy couldn’t finish a quasi-lob-alley-oop. 

Jeremy did draw some oohs and aahs from the crowd. For instance, when he took a guy left baseline, clutched in the air, then at the last second zinged it to a guy (either Michael Washington of Arkansas or Roderick Flemings of Hawaii, i.e., big men who can’t shoot) who had an open shot from the FT line but passed up the shot for a swing pass to someone else, so the tally count could’ve reached 9. 
read more from "Portsmouth prospecting: the assist machine Jeremy Lin"

I’m not sure how they pick the teams at the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament — my guess is that there’s a secret draft between the eight team “owners”, perhaps with some influence from agents — but Jeremy Lin has found himself on a pretty decent team. However, that’s only if he’s at point guard and he’s starting at point guard. We should know in about three hours, when the PIT tips off. Jeremy’s team plays first.

The good news is, Jeremy’s team probably has the best backcourt in the entire tournament. At the two-guard is Aubrey Coleman of Houston, who led the entire NCAA in scoring. He’ll probably be a 2nd-round pick, as I alluded to in my earlier post about the six or seven players who play in the PIT and end up being an NBA draft pick two months later.

There’s also Nic Wise of Arizona, but this could also be bad news, as I alluded to as well. It’s good news if Jeremy starts ahead of Wise, has a great game, and basically outshines Wise at the same position. It’s bad news if either Wise starts over Jeremy or both of them are starting. You’d have to assume Coleman is a shoo-in to start. Because Wise is under 6′0″, you’d have to assume that he’d play point anytime he’s on the floor. That’s why it’s bad for Jeremy if Wise not only starts, but also is on the floor at the same time as Jeremy.
read more from "What Jeremy Lin’s up against at Portsmouth"

Scratch one “specialist” NBA agent, representing yet another point guard, off the list for our Asian-American fan favorite, Jeremy Lin. According to TheRookieWall.com (see article link below), Arizona senior Nic Wise has hired over-achieving agent Andre Buck.

Wise stands just 5′10″ and weighs just 180 lbs. His numbers for this season (14.4 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 3.3 apg, 1.7 spg, 0.1 bpg) pale in comparison to Jeremy’s, but that’s besides the point. Wise actually had some superb numbers last year, at 15.7 ppg and 4.6 apg for example. Buck is sure to point to the departure of Chase Budinger, who is having a decent rookie season with the Houston Rockets — selected by none other than NBA stat fiend GM Daryl Morey — as the primary reason for the dropoff in Wise’s numbers. Well, aside from a crappy team and Arizona wasn’t that great last year either, which didn’t mean too much to Morey with Budinger.

In the excerpt below, you could replace Wise’s name with Jeremy’s and you’d have the exact same dilemma. Which means the competition for that scarce one-of-sixty draft slot just got even tougher. Supply and demand, people. Supply and demand.

EXCERPT: “Nic will really have to blow teams away in individual workouts, and Andre Buck will have to pull another rabbit out of his hat, but we aren’t going to completely rule out the possibility it could happen.  Nic can do a lot to help himself with a strong performance at the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament later this month.”

Read the full article: A “Wise” Decision |