Joseph Lin easily won the nod from members of the Basketball Writers’ Association with an outstanding weekend of play to land the Super Basketball League (SBL) Player of the Week honor.
The Fubon Braves point guard, who began the season known mainly as NBA player Jeremy Lin’s younger brother, is well on his way to creating his own version of “Linsanity” in the SBL with a relentless style of play and unusual poise to guide his team to a pair of come-from-behind wins.
“I never thought I would be considered for [the Player of the Week], but it is a great honor to be able to win it in the first week,” Lin said earlier this week upon learning of his selection to the weekly award.
He averaged 18.5 points, 6.5 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game in the two contests that the Braves played.
“There is still a lot of room for improvement for me as far as my field goal percentage though,” Lin added when asked about which aspect of his game he would change.
He shot an eight-for-25 (32 percent) from the field (not including three-point attempts) in the two games he played.
Lin and his teammates will have their hands full with three games this week, including uphill battles against perennial powerhouses Pure Youth Construction, Taiwan Beer and Kinmen Kaoliang.
His continued success on the court will be the best proof that he is among the elite in the league.
Elsewhere in the SBL, on Tuesday night, the Dacin Tigers finally broke into the win column with a 79-76 overtime win against Kinmen Kaoliang at the Banciao Gymnasium in New Taipei City.
After falling short to the Braves in their opener on Sunday, the Tigers managed to eke out a much-needed win with Lin Guan-luen and Chou Yi-hsiang leading the way, the former netting 22 points and the latter coming up with a key block in the fourth quarter to boost his team’s confidence.
Unfortunately for the Cats, the win came at a hefty price as hired gun Marcus Douthit was lost in the first half after the veteran center experienced some obvious discomfort in his Achilles tendon in the first half.
“We are not sure if [Douthit] will be available for our next game, but we don’t have any plans to replace him yet,” Dacin skipper Chiou Da-tsung said after the game.
Douthit is vital to the Tigers’ success because he not only possesses tremendous size (2.1m and 113kg), but also more than 10 years of experience in Asia, most recently as a member of the Philippine national team.
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