Monday, March 16, 2015

NBA PLAYER: Jeremy Lin

Jeremy Lin is an NBA basketball player. He plays for the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team. Prior to the Lakers, he spent sometime with the Houston Rockets, another NBA team. Lin became famous while playing for the New York Knicks. The term "Lin sanity" came about during his time with the Knicks. He had an incredible run with the team that gained him superstar status in the NBA.

Jeremy Lin is a great offensive player. He is good at shooting and driving to the basket. He sees the court very well and it helps in his passing game. He is a point guard and seeing the court well is a needed skill set. He seems to thrive best in a run and gun style of play. He does most of his damage in the transition from defense to offense. If there is one knock on Jeremy Lin, it is that he is not a good defensive player.

Playing defense is an important part of basketball. It is the art of stopping your opponent from scoring or helping some one else to score. It can be very difficult and Mr. Lin is not the only one with difficulty playing defense. To be clear, it is not that Mr. Lin does not play defense. He gets beat off the dribble when his opponents use fakes to go by him. Also, the screens don't help, but that's a problem for everyone. The man Mr. Lin is guarding does three things to go by him. They use a head fake, shoulder fake or ball fake. The ball fake usually entails a cross-over. As stated earlier, Mr. Lin is not the only one with defensive problems. There are many NBA players with the same problem.

The solution is very simple. The answer lies in what is known as body mass or your center mass. I've watch Jeremy Lin play defense (purely as a fan of his and of the game). He has a tendency to focus on the opponents head, shoulder or ball dribble. By doing this, he is susceptible to fakes which results in him losing his man in open court. What Mr. Lin needs to do is concentrate on the center mass of his opponent. He needs to focus in on the chest area of the man he is playing. A player can fake with his head, shoulders or even the ball but where his center mass goes, so does the rest of him. There is no way around it. There are other factors that a good defensive player needs. But in Mr. Lin's case, This is the most important in my opinion. The opinion of one of his many fans.  

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