Atlanta Hawks: Farewell to Linsanity, Jeremy Lin to Sign with Raptors
By Chris Guest
A quick recap of today’s Atlanta Hawks news surrounding the buyout of Jeremy Lin.
News broke today via ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski that the Atlanta Hawks will buy out the contract of Jeremy Lin for the remainder of the season. Lin will then sign with the Toronto Raptors.
The Raptors are currently one of the best teams in the NBA, and their 41 wins are tied with the Milwaukee Bucks for most in the NBA. Recently, the Raps waxed the Hawks in State Farm Arena.
After trading away Delon Wright in the Marc Gasol deal at the trade deadline, Lin will serve as the team’s backup change-of-pace point guard with Kyle Lowry and Fred VanVleet often being staggered.
Jeremy Lin is finalizing a buyout with Atlanta, clearing the way for him to sign with Toronto, agents Jim Tanner and Roger Montgomery tell ESPN.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) February 11, 2019
Lin has played extremely well for the Atlanta Hawks, and his per-game production has been steady all season. For a while, Linsanity was flirting with an elite 50/40/90 slash line, but he has cooled off since midseason, but his current slash line of 46/33/86 is nothing to sneeze at. Lin is second on the team in total assists (181) and assists per game (3.5), and earlier in the year (in the game in which Vince Carter notched his 25,000th career point) Lin torched the Raptors impressively:
Perhaps that stellar performance convinced GM Masai Ujiri to sign Lin for the rest of the season.
According to BBall Index’s sortable player grades, Lin grades out with an A in the perimeter defense and playmaking categories – the only player on the Atlanta Hawks to receive such high scores in both areas. Beyond that, the grades give Lin an A- in post play, a B+ in finishing and a B in one-on-one offense.
All of these skills paint the picture of a multifaceted veteran who should be able to bolster the Raptors’ rotation considerably.
It must be noted that without Lin on the roster, the Atlanta Hawks only have 12 players under contract, which means they must add 2 players as soon as possible. Brad Rowland of Peachtree Hoops had quotes from Travis Schlenk on that front:
Travis Schlenk on Thursday re: filling out the roster:
— Brad Rowland (@BTRowland) February 11, 2019
"We’ll just start taking a look at young guys more than likely. We will take a look at guys in the G League. Take a look at some of the guys that got waived kind of like we did last year. Bring guys in on 10-day contracts."
This is a good decision from both teams involved and we wish Lin the best going forward.
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Cheers to Linsanity and good luck with a terrific contender in Toronto!
Statistics courtesy of Basketball Reference and BBall Index.