For me it's actually been Jeremy Lin. My expectations for him last season were pretty low, especially compared to Howard and Asik. I thought he was going to be more of a gimmick acquisition to pay the bill while we tried to rebuild. But he got stronger as the year went on (and recovered from his injury). I love him in the 6th man role, and I love it when he puts his head down and attacks the basket relentlessly. He excels at that game. Especially now that we've given up on the Asik experiment, I think he's only going to look better now that he'll have more offensive weapons around him. I didn't even mention his improved 3 point shot. Just looking great right now. Really nice to see Jones and DMo getting some run. (although DMo in particular still looks pretty bad on defense) Also nice to see that Aaron Brooks still has some game left in the rare spots he sees the court. Also happy to see how well Omri Casspi is doing. I was cautiously optimistic about him for some reason, and he's really come out strong. Who are your bright spots so far?
Gotta be Lin. Dude improved in everything but his turnovers. Quite amazing - I didn't think he could improve his shooting by that amt.
Lin coming off the bench, you expect his assist #'s to be down. But everything else, jump shot, 3 pointers, finishing with left hand, defense. All are significantly improved from where he was. While others on this team in the starting lineup without Lin running the point, looked to have regressed. That should tell you something....
CP. I though he'd take a step back: too much celebrity distractions over the summer, thought basketball would suffer a bit. Has been huuuuuge so far.
Somebody's working on those turnovers now, 1 this game only 2 last last game, even tho one was a pass to Howard he backed up from
The way Parsons, Lin, Jones, and Beverly are playing I can't imagine what the player we nab with Omer will do to this team's depth to help Harden and Howard. I just can't wait until January when this team is gelling and blowing out opponents left and right. I so happy that with the depth Howard and Harden don't need to score 20 to 25 points a game to win. We just need a good lock down defender in the perimeter.
I voted T-Jones, I didn't expect him to have the NBA IQ needed to play in the big league. I was clearly wrong and I'm glad to be so. Jeremy Lin in the other hand has not surprised me. Second half of last year he looked good once he recovered from his injuries.
TOs aren't great to have, but plenty of great teams have high TO rates (like OKC). I don't care too much about them, esp. since you really have to split them apart and see what KIND of TO it was (i.e., offensive foul TO not as bad as say losing the ball while running a high pick and triggering a fastbreak/easy bucket on the other end).
