this is a scouting report of Lin someone posted on reddit two years ago, right after Lin was traded to the Lakers... I think it is a good one, after two up and down seasons, it still is essentially true about Lin as a player, albeit Lin is more versatile and experienced now...
Lin has a very diversified offense--he takes roughly a third of his shots from three point range, mid-range and at the rim, so he's comfortable utilizing the entire length of the court. That, above anything, differentiates him from many of the lower-level point and combo guards in the league. At his best, Lin is penetrating deep to the basket for layups, drawing bushels of fouls, swishing spot-up and self-created mid-range shots, and hitting the occasional three, providing a viable source of offense. He is also playing good team defense and preventing teams from hitting money shots (layups and threes). At his worst, Lin stops short of the basket, displaying tunnel vision and missing open teammates as he flings up runners or takes tough fadeaway shots, or starts turning the ball over incessantly. He would also stop rebounding.
Lin's most unique asset is creating driving layups for himself: nearly 30% of his shots are driving layups, a rate in the fifth of all point guards, and he's also adept at utilizing reverse layups. It's also an excellent value play for him, because at 59.8%, he's well into the top third in conversion rate, and he does an excellent job of drawing fouls and finishing through contact, with a foul-drawing rate of 0.38 (a top six mark for points, and in line with what he's done career-wise). Another third of Lin's shots were from mid-range, and he's also an excellent value play here, with an above average percentage of 39.9%. Looking deeper, Lin in particular does well directly at the rim (63.2%) and from long mid-rangers (42.4%), his two hot-spots. In adapting to his hybrid guard role, Lin created his own shots at the rim roughly a third of the time, while his long mid-rangers were off a mix of assisted and self-created shots. Lin isn't great from long range, but posts somewhat respectable percentages (35.8% this year, 34.3% career) and there's definite hope given that he shoots a career 80.1% from the line on a large sample size.
The problem with Lin is not really about what he is, but what he isn't: one of the primary concerns is what position allows him to optimize his level of play while simultaneously elevating the team play. So far, the numbers paint his best position as shooting guard. If so, he lacks the next level athleticism to compensate for his lack of height: while his dunk rate (0.6%) is perfectly fine for a point guard, as a shooting guard that is a bottom quarter rate. Despite a diversified offense, Lin also lacks the next-level offensive skills: he is a face-up driver and does not utilize his sturdy frame for post-ups, having attempted zero hook shots this past year. He's also not effective in the wonky shots: his points per play on runners, pull-up jumpers and in particular fadeaway and turnaround type shots are quite poor. Lin takes nearly a fifth of his shots in the in-between zones (4-15 feet), but only shoots 33.3% on runners and an abysmal 31.9% from no-man's land.
The other issue is that Lin is not a pure point guard by any stretch: in adapting to the Rockets' depth this past season, he took on a fairly mediocre usage rate. Despite that, his assist rate was bottom third among point guards this past season, and to add insult to injury, he had the fourth worst turnover rate. He had the worst combination of turnover rate and assist rate among points, for players who played over twenty minutes per game.
As a result, Jeremy's offense was less than the sum of its parts this season--adjusted by position, real-plus minus puts him a subpar 231st in offensive effectiveness (out of 430 NBA players), which jibes with 82games' assessment that the Rockets' offense was three points worse with him on the court. Looking deeper, Jeremy played nearly two-thirds of his minutes as point guard, but really struggled to generate offense at that position. While his scoring rate was nearly four points less, his efficiency was nearly six percent worse, and even at point guard his assist rate and turnover rates were noticeably worse. Not surprisingly, Jeremy operates better as the de-facto shooting guard in a team's five-man configurations, as he is not a true point.
Overall, on offense, Lin has a very interesting set of skills, as his ability to pair his constant finishing and foul drawing ability with a good mid-range jumper and foul shooting is appealing, on top of a diversified offense with respectable three point shooting. He has an excellent scoring base coming off the highest true shooting percentage of his career, and excellent guard penetration is something that is arguably harder to find than a guard who can shoot, so there is that level of appeal to his game.
At only age 25, there's also that allure of what he did in the past, and whether he can recapture it: in Houston, he was operating under a clogged offense with alpha males who demand the ball like James Harden and Dwight Howard in Houston. He didn't fit that style, because he wasn't a spot-up type or floor spacer, and at times he operates the same at-rim real estate as those two, which was why he had a net negative offensive rating. While he certainly did not play like a point guard whatsoever the past year, there is evidence favoring that with a higher usage rate. During that 35-game stretch of Linsanity in New York, Lin carried a top-four usage rate, which resulted in a top ten assist rate. He also sported a positive offensive rating, the only time he's ever sported a positive rating here in the NBA. Granted, the sample space is smaller and he was playing uninhibited in former Laker coach Mike D'Antoni's offense, but there there appears to be a direct higher usage to higher efficiency and assist rate correlation with him. Lin needs an open floor, essentially, to tap into what was previously decent to good point guard ability. There is a possibility that he can combine a high usage scoring-passing combination, but it appears in particular a high usage is necessary for Lin to actually make a positive impact on the team's offense. At the very least, he's a very good bench scorer if he cannot hone in the passing to its prior levels. He could certainly also work on refining his ability to hit more complicated shots in the no-man's zones, as well as further improving his long ball and cutting down his turnovers.
On defense, Lin actually rates very well. After adjusting by position, Lin was 77th out of 430 NBA players by defensive RPM the past year, a very good mark; 82games also agrees with this idea, with the Rockets being nearly three points defensively with Lin on the court. nbawowy also agrees, with the Rockets being 0.01 points per possession better defensively with Lin on the court. Lin-based lineups defended layups better by nearly three percent, while defending threes better by 0.6%. These markers are not a fluke, given that Lin also played good team defense during the time of Linsanity. Lin is also an excellent shotblocker by position (7th out of 63 point guards), continuing excellent rates that were seen in college and illustrating his savvy in leveraging his height to make up for lack of length. Still, Lin's imposed-athletic markers really, really tailed off this past season, with a defensive rebound rate in the bottom fifth of all NBA point guards. Lin put up excellent rebounding numbers in college and had put up a top 15 rebound rate in New York. After years of top-notch thievery in college and in his first three years in the league, Lin was also in the bottom third in steal rate this past year, but this might normalize back to its past levels, and considering the very good defense he might have played more contain-level defense the past year.
Lin was better defending point guards than shooting guards, holding down their scoring rate by nearly five points while reducing the efficiency by nearly ten percent, and in general he allows opposing guards to score. The ideal scenario to prevent crossmatching, and optimizing Lin, would create an offense centralized around him to allow him to play point guard at a reasonable level, so he can defend point guards well while being a positive on the team's offense. Lin appears to really, really elevate his game on all facets when he has the ball in his hands, and this even extends to rebounding and stealing the ball. A Lin at past year's level would require crossmatching--a SG offensively, and a PG defensively.
Overall, Lin is a very useful player--while he's definitely overpaid at $15 million this year due to the poison pill contract the Rockets gave him, there is at least some rationale for giving him a large amount of money in the first place. He's still only age 25, and he is a two-way player who might have been suppressed somewhat in Houston's alpha-male offense the past year. His offensive skill at the point guard--ability to draw fouls at will and finish--is a unique trait, and coupled with a very good mid-range shot, an improving long ball and possible point skills with a larger usage, there is a ton to like here. He also couples that with good defensive ratings on top of a precedence for thievery, defensive rebounding and shotblocking, with good size for the point. He is also a good locker room presence, a true professional, and a marketing magnet, especially in Los Angeles where there is a sizeable Asian population. Lin has a real penchant for turnovers and can stand to improve his in-between shots, both of which are real sources of frustration, but few players even have a diversified offensive game in their arsenal, and he's taking those shots in an attempt to grow into them. At the worst, he's putting up very good scoring and defending off-the-bench value, but he might be more than that as a rock-solid starter if he rediscovers the passing ability.
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