Jeremy Lin’s shooting coach — who’s worked with him the last five summers — told a reporter that it was Lin’s two-hour interview with Charlotte Hornets coach Steve Clifford that sealed the Charlotte Hornets deal. (Clifford may have mentioned something about how Lin reminds him of Steph Curry and Klay Thompson of the NBA champion Golden State Warriors.) But shooting coach Doc Scheppler says it was more than that. “This guy knows the game. He reminds me of Peter. He’s into X’s and O’s.” Lin reportedly told Scheppler, who relayed the conversation to Michael Dunlap.
[BONUS: The Jeremy Lin Quiz — Think You Know Jeremy Lin? 13 Questions]
That’s Peter as in Peter Diepenbrock, Jeremy Lin’s high school coach and the guy who had so much confidence in Lin that he helped register the name Linsanity when Lin was still in college, long before Lin’s New York insanity ever happened. Steve Clifford is a basketball lifer as a coach, just like Diepenbrock. In fact Diepenbrock is returning to coach the Palo Alto boys basketball team this season after some time away. That’s where he coached a young guy who was on his way to Harvard.
