Lamb function the best in BF1, and I do think there is a reason, and he work the best when he was playing with Lin together.
http://stats.nba.com/vs/#!/?PlayerID=203087&VsPlayerID=202391When you look at the split of Lamb playing with Lin on/off court, the difference is pretty clear. Lamb was shooting 50.3% FG% and 34.3% 3FG% with Lin on court, and only 42.1% FG% and 28.6% 3FG% when Lin is off court.
And to drill down why is that, if you look at this page:
http://stats.nba.com/vs/#!/scoring?PlayerID=203087&VsPlayerID=202391That's because when Lamb is playing with Lin, he got 50% of his 2FGM and 87% of his 3FGM were assisted, and when Lin is off court, only 36.7% of his 2FGM and 50% of his 3FGM were assisted. That's a big difference. He had almost 60% of FGM assisted when he was playing with Lin but that dropped to only 40% when he is not.
Usually when he was playing with Lin, that's when he was playing in the second team, and thus he was more featured, and Lin and other bench players are more actively look to set him up, thus he is in a position easier to success. On the other hand, when he was not playing together with Lin, that's usually the time he was playing with the first team line up, and then he is not really featured, and nobody looking to set him up, and thus he need to create for himself, which is much harder to success.
In addition to offensive side, Lamb also defense better in the BF1 (playing together with Lin) too.
http://stats.nba.com/vs/#!/advanced?PlayerID=203087&VsPlayerID=202391When Lamb is playing with Lin, the DefRtg is a very good 94.1, but when he was playing without Lin, that was a not so good 101.6.
Though I have been using Lin on/off court to split the time, I have not been trying to contribute that difference to Lin though, it was more because that's a pretty good way to define Lamb was playing in the first team vs. second team. However, defensively, I DO think playing with Lin helped a lot of Lamb's defense.
That's due to the way Lin play defense, Lin was pretty aggressive in help defense and playing the passing lane. Lamb's problem in defense are two fold, one is sometime he lost focus in defense thus lost his person, and second was that he was not able to read the play well to response quick enough. However, when he was playing with Lin, he worked very well with Lin as Lin would read the play early and help his guy, and Lamb will need to help to defend Lin's guy by a switch, thus Lin usually is the first in response to defend, and Lamb's secondary defending give his a split second extra in response which helps him in terms of read the play late or lost focus a little. Then Lamb's help defense give Lin extra time to recover to his man, thus between those two, they had a mini zone by switch a lot, and thus cover quite big area there. However, I don't see Lamb develop that kind of team defense with other player on the court in the first team, thus if he had a split second lost focus, he could lost his man, or don't really know where his position should be.
So overall, I feel at this time, Lamb is not yet a really great individual player, he is more of a system player. In order for him to play well, he will need to be taken care of, both offensively and defensively. That's kind of frustrating though, as he is not a player that you could just simply plug in into an situation, and he could navigate and fill in the need.
Unfortunately, Hornets is not a really deep team that we could ignore Lamb's talent, thus I hope coach Clifford would eventually find a situation for Lamb to have a best chance to success. First of all, really limit Lamb's time together with Walker, but play him more with Lin and Batum, whom are actively looking for set Lamb up. Play him more with vet who have patient to take care of him in defensive end and reminds him. And then just be patient for him to grow to have longer focus span and read the play better.
I still think Lamb could grow to a good player when he mature, and he need motivation and drive to be a better player first to be successful.
