Harden might as well be starting PG, Lin back up PG

Yup, thing is though, Harden will be playing most of the games anyway and Lin will be forced to play with him for most of his minutes.

 

Personally I think Lin coming off the bench is best for both him and the Rockets. Lin no longer has to worry when Toney does well, doesn't have the pressure of wondering whether or not he's playing in the fourth (lol, he's not anymore), and can improve against backups. There's no shame to that, if it helps him and the Rockets.

As long as this dumb Lin-starts-but-might-not-finish-or-even-play-the-4th-at-all rotation system changes.

 

Check Harden's assist to turnover ratio

 

To be honest with you, I wouldn't actually mind TD starting over Lin based on his play. When the bench comes in, Lin can have the freedom to run a fluid offense instead of bringing the ball up and handing it to Harden and/or clunking his jumpers.

 

Well, does McHale want to play Harden more than 40 mins a game? I think a good number for Harden would be about 35 mins.

Then according to your plan, Lin can get 13 full minutes as a full PG, and perhaps share 15 minutes or more as the PG/SG with Harden.

TD can get the other 20 minutes exclusively with Harden.

 

I think the most important thing is for Lin to find his shots. If teams don't respect his perimeter shots, he won't be successful either playing alongside Harden or coming off the bench.

Part of the reason why Lin's having hard time driving to the rim is because right now Lin simply can't draw defense out to create spacing in the paint. Notice in the 3 games he played well (vs. NYK, TOR, UTA), Rox team as a whole was shooting very well (above 50% in 3pt%), which helped create the needed spacing for Lin to attach the rim.

TD is getting PT not because he's a betting PG but because he & Delfino create spacing for Harden to attack the rim. As soon as Lin gets his shots back and is playing well, I assume the coaches will stagger his & Harden's minutes anyway. I mean, Harden is young but we don't want to play him 45 minutes everyday, do we?

 

Typo in my earlier post -> "better" not "betting".

 

What I don't get is why the coaches are trying to turn Harden into a PG. Sure he can play some PG, but not every player that can play PG should, I mean so could Kobe, McGrady and various other star or superstar players but you still have PGs that can distribute the ball to the other players or to help run preset plays.

It is as if, the coaches have just given him reigns of the offense because they don't know how to create a working one themselves.

 

It's not "democratic ball" as Sampson said. It's Harden ball.

 

Harden/Lin are two much of a "team first" duo to not eventually figure it out. Melo and Amare still haven't figured it out after more than a full season of trying to figure it out, and dealing with injuries. I dont expect Lin/Harden to take that long. Both guys will work hard to complement each other and not work against each other.

Lin is only a consistent 3 point shot away from doing so. Reports are he's working with his shooting coach overtime to do so. He knows playing off the ball is what the team needs right now. Says alot about him as a teammate. Its going to work out eventually, and no Lin is not getting benched. Its just not going to happen. They have 25 million reasons to make it work from the front office/coaching perspective.

 

Nice post.

 

+1. Couldn't have said it better! Took LBJ & Wade an entire season too!

 

The Harden-Jlin duo was working. Look at our first two games....what a joy to watch. I guess they did not like the concept of teamwork, they decided instead to go with the so called democratic ball/iso harden concept.

 

The first two games weren't such a great success because Harden was passing the ball to Lin and he isn't now. Harden ISO'ed just as much then as he does now. Just as Lin gets about as many touches now as he did then.(except for last night's lack of PT)

Believe it or not, other teams scout other teams to find out how to stop them defensively. It took a few games for teams to get enough footage to gameplan to stop the Rockets offensively.

The gameplan now is pretty basic. Double the pick and roll. That goes for Lin and Harden. Its just that Harden still can score the ball off the P&R double and Lin has had some trouble. When Harden is doubled he needs floor spacing to ease pressure off of him. Which comes back to the Lin 3 point shot being oh so important. If Lin can consistently knock that down it opens up EVERYTHING.

That's emphasis #1. Emphasis #2 should be finding(either on the roster or not) a roller for Lin/Harden in the P&R who the defense has to pay attention to rolling to the basket. Asik can be that guy eventually, but he's been very up and down this season offensively. Defenses are going to keep lagging off of him and fouling him if he gets free under the basket.

Long story short, the balance offensively is bad now because there are holes in it that the defense can exploit. Yes, Harden is still going to get buckets but its everyone else that suffers. If A. Lin can become a consistent 3 point threat, and B. Asik can improve dramatically as a roller to the rim, the offense will be much, much more balanced. Especially since Asik has shown the ability to really have great passing potential for a big man.

They are young, and need to improve the holes in their games. Pretty simple stuff. Good news is those holes can be fixed in given time, hard work, and effort. Something you know these guys obviously have.

 

I am just disappointed that they did not build on it.

It's fixable alright but it depends on how far they are willing to go. Harden cannot win by himself, he needs the team behind him. I just want our coaching staff to trust our players more, let them make mistakes as a team...it is not a bad thing, it will only make them stronger. Not too much to ask.

 

Honestly I feel as though Harden sometimes wants Lin to be more aggressive. I believe it was the end of the Utah game a while back and Lin was trying to hand the ball off to Harden. Instead, Harden brushed him off and signaled for him to set up the play.

The result was Lin getting a clear drive to the basket and scoring a layup.

This needs to happen more.

But I think this is more on Lin than Harden. It's not Harden's play style holding Lin back. Rather, Lin being tentative and passive that is holding himself back.

 

sorry jlin is no steve novak

 

I have seen Steve Novak go 1/9 too.

 

****, why not? Lin's been playing like crap. It's not like he's getting points near the basket as well as Harden.