Kobe Bryant says he would fire the scouts who overlooked Jeremy Lin
Either Mike D’Antoni’s system really is that good for a point guard, or Jeremy Lin was completely overlooked. As we all know, Lin was a few short days away from being cut by the Knicks. If that day came, there’s no guarantee any team in the NBA would have offered him a roster spot. Kobe Bryant finds that to be completely unacceptable.
“The biggest thing to me is how everybody missed that,” Bryant said according to ESPNNewYork.com. “They all would be fired if I was owning a team. I hear this stuff about it came out of nowhere, and I think it’s (wrong).
“You can’t play that well and just come out of nowhere. There has to something there and everybody missed it, so heads would roll.”
Somebody learned about Linsanity in a hurry. This is the same Kobe Bryant who was blatantly frustrated with reporters a few weeks ago when they were asking him about Lin on the eve of the Lakers loss to the Knicks. I guess Lin’s 38-point performance in that game officially put him on Kobe’s radar.
As for whether or not heads should roll, this type of thing happens all the time. Lin’s story makes you wonder how many guys have come and gone that could have been stars in the NBA. It’s unlikely that it would happen very often, but you’d be crazy to think Lin is the only player in league history who was overlooked and almost saw his career end before it started. If every scout who missed out on a talented player was fired, there would be none left.
