Patrick Beverley is starting at PG in Manila against the Pacers (UPDATED w/ CF Article)

you could make the same argument for "around a group of women" :grin:

Women and men can give it. Both like it. Some women like it more than some men and vice versa

 

Lin is a better player than Beverly. Our starting PG needs to have good handles, hit open shots and play good defense. Beverly and Lin can do that. Our PG off the bench needs to be able to initiate the offense and create for himself and others. Lin can do that significantly better than Beverly. That`s what people mean when they say, it could be the best fit for the team to have Lin lead the second team.

Lin should still get more minutes than Beverly - he still should finish game. He just should be on the floor, when Harden is on the bench. That`s maximizing the teams talents. Not demoting a player.

 

He would be one by now if he was in a different situation.

 

hahaha this made my day

 

It would be about comparative advantage. Let's assume Lin is better than Bev at everything.

Let's say Bev as a starter takes us from a total +8 to +6 during "first unit" minutes.

If Lin takes us from a -4 to a +4 during "second unit" minutes, then having Lin off the bench makes sense.

This is in no way proven though and those are just numbers out of my ass - but McHale just wants to see...

No matter what happens in this case, there really is no "first" and "second" unit. Whoever comes off the bench will get plenty of minutes with Harden, Howard, and Parsons. Heck, our crunch time lineup could very well feature Harden, Lin, and Bev.

 

We won't know what the coaches are thinking for sure until we see the minutes distribution.

In any case, it is pretty clear that McHale prefers Beverley's style of PG play ("I hit singles") to Lin's ("by nature he's a home run hitter"); or at least that he prefers it in context of the current Rockets starters. So Lin has to be enough better than Beverley with the starters to overcome that initial deficit, and I don't know that he is.

 

loool this is why you ex YOF/LOF's are taking delusional thought process to a new level.Are you going to put lin above Paul, Parker and Curry in the allstar ballot?. loool

 

Exactly. I still think Lin will be the starter come regular season but honestly it doesn't really matter if he starts or not. But he is a better player than Bev overall and shouldn't get his minutes reduced if he is 6th man

 

Even if he (Lin) comes off the bench I believe he will get his 30 odd minutes and finish games. Plus he'll get more freedom to be creative with the ball and have better stats and a effect on a game. I would think Lin fans would see that.

 

I put Lin as the 6th man in my association on NBA 2k14 and he's been avging 17 / 5reb / 6ast as opposed to 14 / 4 / 7 when he started lol

 

Actually, the truly amazing thing about Linsanity was how he took scrubs like Jeffries, Fields, and Novak and made them look like a winning team.

 

True. Glad Fields and Novak got their $$$ before disappearing again.:grin:

 

That's not the point at all. Let's say you just paid a lot of money to see your favorite player (whoever that may be) for the first and maybe only time live. Normally he is a starter, but when the game starts he isn't out there, instead he is on the bench. I'd be annoyed. And if you were honest you would be too. No one is gonna care about how many minutes he played from the previous game. They just wanna see their favorite player play as much as possible.

I personally have no problems with experimenting with line-ups in the pre season, not even this one. Just the timing of it was terrible. And please, none of this "you do what's best to give the Rockets a chance at the championship". If you really feel that changing the starting pg for one game instead of 2 games later in the pre-season will have any impact of their chances for winning a championship, then your delusional.

Look at how upset some Lin fans are, and they didn't even pay to watch him. To say the people who paid got what they wanted, your kidding yourself.

 

We've seen it many times what lin can do when he dominant the ball. It makes little sense for him to play that role when harden is just so much better at it. And with no great backup for harden, it makes lot of sense to utilize lin skills in attacking and distributing as 6th man. Plus, Patrick is an efficient ball handler and good shooter and play well alongside harden.

 

Let's break it down.

McHale could let Beverley start in the first game of pre-season, in which case an uproar would occur, because Lin "lost" his starting spot without even playing a game. So Lin has to start.

McHale could let Beverley start this game, in which case, as already shown, an uproar would occur. So Lin has to start.

McHale could let Beverley start the third game in, but that's in Taipei so an uproar would occur. Lin has to start.

Finally, 4th game in Toyota center. McHale starts Beverley, and then an uproar would occur because either:

1) Lin played well in the first 3 games: McHale has no reason to let Beverley start other than the fact that he hates Lin.

2) Lin played decent or poor in those 3 games: McHale doesn't have faith in Jeremy Lin and is just waiting to bench him.

Regardless of where and when the Rockets played, the Lin fans will get upset if McHale experiments with Beverley as a starter.

 

He may not be in the ballot over those 3 pgs in the west, but he sure can put up numbers close enough to be an all star...

 

I would not be annoyed so long as the player I paid to watch gets plenty of meaningful court time. If I'm annoyed that he's not on the floor from the very beginning, it would be merely out of impatience at the start of the evening. But he got 23 minutes, and he played a majority of the final quarter in a preseason game, so ultimately I'm satisfied.

 

It's a glass half full.

Fans could find anything to be upset over, if they really want too. The amount of playing time, the amount he touches the ball, the amount he shoots, the amount of PNR he uses, etc. There's still a difference of being upset over a player not playing at all vs someone just later in the game.Ya I might be a little annoyed at first if I expected him to start, but are grown ups going to throw a temper tantrum over that?


The end product was still worth it unless you expected Lin to play 40+ minutes with All-star numbers in a Pre-Season game. If you're going to pay top $$$ for a product, perhaps do some research and take into account the possibilities regarding the situation.
McHale could have completely trolled the fans by playing Lin 5 mins as a starter...have him stand in the corner for the 3 and pass it out the majority of the time and then bench him completely.

Lin ended with 14, 6 and 5. If there's a player to be pissed at for paying top dollar to watch, it would be Dwight Howard. 9 pts, 5 fouls, and 4 TOs. But again, it's pre-season. Filipinos are diehard basketball fans, they'll get over it.

 

Except that's not going to be the case. Beverly will get more minutes than Lin and he will be the one to finish games. Mchale has had it in for Lin from day one, he never gave him a fair shot and he never will.

Put lin in Harden's place. Center the team around him and give him complete freedom and faith, tell him he doesn't have to defend like Harden didn't last season, you'll see Lin put up all star numbers. Hell he did that every time Harden was out and he was allowed to run the game.

But haters like Mchale see linsanity as a fluke, when really Lin is a much better player now than he was in Linsanity. And he is a far better player than patrick beverly. But he won't be given the chance to prove it conclusively. Not with this coach.

 

I am a 2012'er and a Lin fan; I do not approve of this message. So before anyone posts about how crazy Lin fans (mostly Asian) are, I hope they keep this post in mind as well.