Much to the frustration of NBA veteran Kobe Bryant, the performance of Jeremy Lin on the basketball court, along with the rest of the Los Angeles Lakers team, led to a loss against the Memphis Grizzlies 109-106 on Friday.
According to Corey Hansford of Lakers Nation, Lin has struggled with consistency this season. However, he did enjoy an excellent outing against the Grizzlies, netting 20 points and five assists.
"He shot the ball well," Bryant said. "He just needs to relax. Sometimes really smart people take themselves too seriously. He's just got to relax."
Bryant added that Lin has "to go through it," drawing a comparison with how parents raise their children. He indicated that he will not lecture Lin again on his playing style.
"When a parent tells you not to do something, you really don't know unless you actually go through it yourself," Bryant said about Lin. "He has to navigate through it himself a little bit."
Lakers coach Byron Scott seemed to back up Bryant's assessment, based on what he saw in the point guard in the team's first practice session of 2015. According to Shahan Ahmed of NBC Los Angeles, Scott moved Lin to the bench 12 games earlier.
"A lot of inconsistency," Scott said without hesitation. "That's the biggest thing. Some games [Lin]'s really good, and some games he's not."
Ahmed noted that from those 12 games, Lin has averaged 7.6 points, 4.4 assists and 2.7 rebounds in 21.6 minutes per game, shooting fewer than 35 percent from the field.
"It's just trying to find a consistent effort from [Lin], consistent play from him, and I think he's still kind of searching at times," Scott said. "But I think at times, which is kind of amazing to me, he'll have one real good game, and the next game, it'll seem like he doesn't have his confidence. I don't know where that's coming from."
However, Scott still had hope for the point guard being an integral player on the Lakers team.
"[Lin] just needs to find that consistency to come off the bench and provide what I think he can provide and what I know he knows he can provide a lot more than he's been doing," Scott said.
Lin admitted in his latest blog post that "a lot has happened." He assessed his performance in a critical manner in his New Year post.
"If I were to be honest, this season has gone in the opposite direction that I anticipated," Lin wrote. "I went through one of the worst, if not the worst, slump I've had in my basketball life, as well as having some of my poorest performances ever as a basketball player."
Lin added that he felt "powerless to control things around me," noting that at times, "it has felt like the barriers were insurmountable." He elaborated on what has been bringing him down lately.
"To me, happiness is dependent on one's circumstances, but joy rises above life's circumstances," Lin wrote. "Trust me, there have been many times this past season where I was filled with frustration, many situations where I felt overwhelmed and many nights where I couldn't sleep much because I was thinking about the game."
However, he has relied on his faith in God to get him through the rough patch in his basketball career with the Lakers.
"Instead of obsessing over how to change things I have no control over, I'm learning to give each game to God and I'm learning to simply be grateful for each day I get to be healthy, on the court, and doing what I love," Lin wrote. "Going through trials has allowed me to focus and depend on Christ more."
Lin added that even if all of his efforts don't work in saving the Lakers' season in the end, he thought that it was part of God's plans.
"I can rest in knowing that God is faithful and always has a perfect plan," Lin wrote. "Of course I'm human and I go through emotional highs and lows, but I try [to] remind myself of God's promises."
