2025 Draft Watch: Assessing Lin Wei in a CBA Basketball Game

September 10th, 2024

This time around, I decided to watch Nanjiang’s 6-2 point guard, Lin Wei play in a March 31st Chinese Basketball Association basketball game against Liaoning, with thanks to YouTube via 红星体育官方频道【高清直播】. Wei is a sharpshooting combo guard that put up solid numbers in China’s top professional league last season, and he will be an automatically draft-eligible prospect for the 2025 draft, so I wanted to take the time to assess his skills. Here are my thoughts on how he fared, as well as how his game may currently stack up as a prospect for the NBA.

Wei shot the ball very well, especially from downtown. He is a gifted shooter that can make threes both off the catch and dribble. He was able to pull up to make a three early on, and he also showed a knack for making open corner threes. Plus, he also showed a decent ability to score off the dribble. Wei has a solid pull-up game that enables him to make mid-range jumpers, and he also was able to make a mid-range jumper off the glass on the break.

Plus, he also generally excelled at scoring on hustle plays. Wei has a solid first step and foot speed that enables him to score on strong, aggressive drives in transition. He also was able to score on a put back off his own miss once. On the downside, he did tend to take too many mid-range jumpers, and it seemed like he took some rushed, contested shots that led to misses, but Wei showed that he is a three-level scorer on offense.

Also, he showcased fairly average playmaking skills in this game. For the positives, Wei showed that he can run the point, and he will quickly move the ball to set up scoring chances to his teammates. He was able to dribble off a screen and throw a touch pass to a roll man to notch an assist. On the downside, he tended to be too careless with the ball that would lead to turnovers, and he also threw a costly passing turnover that sealed the loss for his team in the closing seconds of the game. Wei would sometimes throw hasty passes that would get intercepted. Another time when handling the ball, he had a ball poked away from him to commit a turnover.

In addition, Wei is a willing rebounder that was especially active at crashing the offensive glass to help his team get rebounds, and he also was able to push the pace off of a defensive board once. Defensively though, he struggled. For the positives, Wei can apply ball pressure to make things difficult for opposing ball handlers, and he was able to jump on a loose ball to help his team get a steal once. He also would sometimes contest shots to force some misses. However, Wei often struggled to defend in screen situations, as he would often have trouble getting around screeners, which would lead his team to give up wide open shots that would result in giving up baskets. Other times, he would not always hustle back on defense and he wouldn’t always pick up a man quickly on the defensive end, which would lead his team to give up wide open jump shots. He also would struggle to stay in front of his man when defending off the dribble, which would lead him to commit fouls and allow scores.

Overall, Lin Wei is an agile, sharpshooting combo guard that can shoot and score the basketball, but he will need to improve in the other aspects of the game, as he’ll need to take better care of the basketball and he will need to improve his defense, especially in screen situations. Currently, he is a solid player in his current professional league in China, but he will need to continue to improve as an overall player. Currently, he projects to be a borderline second round candidate for the 2025 draft, and if he is able to reach his full potential, Lin Wei could end up being a solid role player similar to former Dallas Mavericks’ guard, Seth Curry in the NBA.