Nash played about 200 games before he started to morph into the Steve Nash who became an MVP. Lin has less than half that at this point. The kid is athletic and smart enough to figure things out eventually, assuming his work ethic is there. Hell, with that first step of his, all he needs to do is get his 3-point shot to fall and he'll be extremely tough to guard: Slack off and he'll stick the J; close in on him and he'll blow right past you.
At this point in time, Lin's probably just trying to regain his previous form. Any improvement for him will likely happen next season, assuming he stays healthy.
I wouldn't make that statement if was you, why would our starting PG be a bench player when he's in his prime?
A lot of Lin's problems will go away if he can become a better shooter. Right now teams just leave him open and dare him to shoot.
I was going to say this. For someone who is often criticized about how bad his jumper his, he can still score...and can score at least 40%+ fg. I think in the past winning streak his fg is hovering around 45%? I have no idea I coud; be wrong. Jeremy needs to learn to be more crafty as the OP says to trick the D and keep them honest. I hope he is asking harden for tips because Harden has a lot of fakes/hestitation dribbles that allow him to get his jumper off - but Harden also has a pretty quick release compared to Lin
I agree to some extent with the OP. If Harden and Lin were pitchers, I'd say Harden can drive with the Changeup (stutter step, change of speed) and the Curveball (Eurostep) whereas Lin only has the Fastball. Lin's fastball is a little faster than Harden's, so in theory he can be as good (or better) with new pitches, but there's no guarantee that he'll ever learn them. Hence the disagreement over Lin's ceiling. Other advantages that Harden has over Lin are that he's a couple inches taller, a little beefier, and can reliably dunk. So he's much better at doing hard finshes at the rim for the and-1. Which suggests that Lin will have more success incorporating more Steve Nash craftiness into his game than trying to be another Harden.
Lately teams have been burned lol.I believe Lin is someone who likes to be respected. If a team or player doesn't believe he is good in someway, Lin likes to respond to the challenge.
You don't just earn respect because you want to. You need some hard work to make that happen. Lin is just not a great shooter now. He needs to put in some work over the summer to improve his shooting.
Exactly! Why are people still responding to trolls like King1? Just put him on your ignore list! Trolls feed off of other people's anger, the more we get riled up about their comments, the harder they troll. Do yourself a favor, add them to the ignore list, together we can make the trolls invisible on this otherwise great forum.
That's true, I guess what I meant is, if a team or player somehow challenges him or thinks he's a 'scrub' or goes at him, Lin will try to respond back. My most recent example that I can think about is Nate Robinson, who seemed to have talked a bit of trash to Lin, but Lin clearly wanted to get him back and scored right back on him in the next possession. Another one is during the Lakers where he scored 38 as a Knick, he said he had a bit of motivation to play harder because Kobe didn't know who he was lol.
it's Lin's style(charging straight to the basket) from highschool to now. kidd has ever said "He just plays at one gear and that's a very high gear, We want him to play the whole season. If you have just one gear, it's hard to play 82 games." sometimes he can slow down,but not always. i hope Lin can develop his outside shot. But, that's a tall order.i know he can't suddenly become a great shooter. just happy that he did not dare to shoot those open shots.
So with more practice/experience, more coaching, more offseason preparation, and more chemistry with his teammates, this 24 yr old is going to get worse instead of better?? Haters are going to hate.
Actually, Lin's 3 point shooting seems to be a little better in the past 5 games. Not by a lot, but if he continues to work on this, people won't want to leave him open.
If he wants to drive and they are forcing him right, he simply needs to jab step right and then that will open up space for him to drive left. Basically what you are suggesting is that he just becomes a better iso player. In fact, this was my strength in college, so I can tell you all about it. The key to being an iso player is to take what the defense gives you... you read and react. If you jab step and he bites and sags, you can shoot, or pump fake and get him to over-commit and then drive, and if he's still on you while driving, a step-back jumper will get him to over-commit again for an open shot. The trick is to read the defender to get him to over-commit, and that is when you are open. Jab steps, pump fakes, driving, and step-back pull-up jumpers are head fakes. It's really easy to score if you are that type of player who is good at reading the defender and getting your open shot. But that is basically just being a good one on one player. It's not something that is a small change. It would basically be changing the way he's used to playing basketball.