The longstanding and undeniable lure of playing in Los Angeles, particularly for the Lakers, seems to have been lost on this year’s batch of free agents. The Clippers were able to sign ESPN Stats & Info, Lin’s 57.9% shooting on drives last season was second among players who took a minimum of 7 attempts, trailing only LeBron James at 63.8%. That style should work perfectly fine with the Lakers, who were seventh in the NBA in drives per game last season with 18.2 per game.

Linputting Him in L.A.

That said, the Lakers are still without a head coach, so it’s a bit tough to know exactly how Lin will fit into a system that’s not yet in place. Even so, our nERD metric - which estimates how many wins a team would finish a season over .500 if said player was in its starting lineup with four league-average players - is higher on Lin than anyone who played point guard for the Lakers last season.

Even at a relatively average 0.1, Lin’s score was better than those of Jodie Meeks (-1.0), Steve Nash (-1.1), Jordan Farmar (-2.5), Steve Blake (-2.6), and Kendall Marshall (-4.9). With Jordan Hill actually being the only Laker to have a nERD score above 0.0 last season (at 2.6), it’s not hard to call the acquisition of Lin a net positive for the Lakers. In terms of win shares, his 4.4 last season would have ranked him second on the team as well, trailing only Jodie Meeks at 4.5

So there you have it. Jeremy Lin is not likely to rekindle the “Linsanity” madness from his New York days in LA (nor should he be expected to do so anymore), but his driving abilities and steady improvements in efficiency, ball control, and defense make for a nice package nonetheless.

As a player who embodied the words “hype” and “overrated” for the better part of his young career, one could even say that he’s heading to LA as a slightly underrated player - something one rarely gets a chance to say about incoming Lakers. In what has been a decidedly lackluster offseason for the purple and gold, the possibility of Lin continuing his upward trajectory next season is a reason for at least some optimism in La-La Land (at a minimum, that’s what people should be telling Kobe). Worst case scenario, he's only got one year left on his contract and the Lakers will have a chance to re-evaluate him next offseason.

For now, bring on the awful puns!