[ClutchFans] Jeremy Lin after scoring 38 points vs. Spurs

some love from the veteran, there's always hope :grin:

 

I agree, Sports2012.

Especially with the youngest team in the league, clear and defined roles and expectations are the sureset way to solidify a young core of players management was very high on acquiring.

You usually don't want to expose any players' weaknesses too early or too often, particularly a young player with high or even modest expectations of success.

It's interesting to note how the Rockets (Chandler Parsons, for one) all seem to genuinely want to do well, and want to see the best for one another. I think that's a team mindset that's filtering from James Harden and Jeremy Lin. They're quick to defer compliments and accept personal criticism, on average.

That's a good sign from your young core. But getting people on the same page means everybody needs to read from the same book.

So that starts with the head coach.

I get that Kevin McHale hasn't garnered alot of positive reviews in his stint here as coach. I gather a lot of that comes from an overachieving, but still mediocre ballclub from last season forcing a steeper learning curve for him to navigate than what he will perhaps be given now with what amounts to a clean slate.

It's perfectly natural to find out what you have in players and what they can and can't do. This period for the Rockets is as much about player evaluation as it is about wins and losses...and I say that carefully, because I fully believe that nothing serves a young player like learning how to win.

But one of the reasons why you try to get as much talent as you can to work with is so that the end result of all that mixing and matching and armchair coaching eventually churns out a winning club. And in acquiring that talent, you also have to be definite about who's going to do what job.

Nobody's going to ask Omer Asik to run point anytime soon (or at least I hope not). As long as he stays 7" tall and is an anial on the boards, I can wait for his hands to get better. He's already making some strides in improving his free throws. Simply from doing his job.

I watch Hakeem Olajuwon's hall of fame induction ceremony every so often (because reality t.v. sucks), and I marvel at how, when he was first introduced to the game in Nigeria at 15 years old, that he was told the role of the center position, in regards to both his personal responsibility and the team's needs. Be good at your job, in essence, and the team will be good at theirs.

Jeremy Lin's job should be point guard. Primary ball handler. Playmaker. Creator. Distributor. And since he's so good at it, all-around nice guy, too.

James Harden's job should be shooting guard. Look for opportunities to score in as many different ways as you can. Be offensively patient early in the shot clock. Be greedy in thelast 8 seconds of the clock if nothing else happens.

I figure Harden can keep the beard, too. Not really my thing, but it seems to work for him...

You REALLY want to find out how good somebody is at something?

Besides looking it up on Google or Wikipedia or YouTube?

Have them do that ONE thing. Over and over and over again. See what happens.

I've heard of worse plans. Even had a couple of stinkers myself....

 

I'd just like to point out what seems to be blatantly obvious with regards to what allowed Lin to do well in this game. The only reason why he was able to tear up the paint is because of his excellent perimeter shooting tonight. Which, in my humble opinion, was caused by being forced to train his 3-shot to death since he was being used as a spot up shooter.

Also, contrary to what some here think, I do believe both Harden and Lin could perform as combo guards instead of being a mutually exclusive SG-PG pair. While yes, Harden is better than Lin playing as a spot up shooter, imagine if Lin could elevate his spot-up game to be as good as Harden's. What you get is a very unpredictable back court where you don't really know who's gonna make the play next. All I'm saying is why not have 2 playmakers who take turns in having the ball instead of assigning a pre-defined role for each when they can perform hybrid duties?

 

Good post! But I think the problem with Lin is, he has to have the ball in order to get into his rhythm. Not saying he can't improve, but as of right now, maybe it would be best if he started the first quarter with the ball and some PnRs and shots, etc.

 

kholdphlames, you ARE paying attention, aren't you?

I will submit to you that Jeremy Lin's "breakout" performance as a Houston Rocket was directly related to the one area of his game that will need to improve most quickly (especially with the acquisition of James Harden) - his perimeter shooting.

Coach Greg Popovich agrees with you, too. A guard who can shot the ball is hard to guard.

Unless you're Rajon Rondo. Then you're just HARDER to guard.

What you're pointing out is exactly where the Rockets may hope to end up with James Harden and Jeremy Lin, kholdphlames. Both guys being nearly identical offensive threats, on opposite ends of the floor in the offense, and posing consistent problems for defenses because they are the exact same player, in essence, and are quite literally in two places at once.

But that still is a'ways away, from my point of view, for a lot of different reasons. You've got to start somewhere, kholdphlames.

And you start by giving the kids one job to do. Then you find out if they can or can't handle more.

One thing about Gregg Popovich's observation: as much as Lin's outside shooting did help him gain some confidence offensively, I think Lin mentioned himself that he finally started to feel comfortable with whatever he was being asked to do for the Rockets. I take that to mean that (even with, or perhaps because of, James Harden's absence) Lin finally felt okay with playing the way he's most comfortable and has had his most success. Success that can and did lead to wins just a few months ago.

I remember Tony Parker couldn't shoot the ball either when he joined the Spurs. Popovich knew that Parker had to get better at that, but then Parker did have the luxury of a prime Tim Duncan to ease him into that development.

That's what defining roles would help with most at this juncture, kholdphlames.

Right now Jeremy Lin should be the point guard. James Harden should be the two guard.

You're absolutely right that both of those jobs don't have to be mutually exclusive. Ideally, they shouldn't be.

But this is a team of babies, especially the ones who are going to be asked to grow up and put on their big-boy pants soon.

I had the same inkling that I'd throw my son onto a football field, fantasizing about the gridiron glory he'd win for me (uh...HIMSELF....I mean HIMSELF)...

...but one coach told me I might want to wait until he was out of diapers first...

...none of his team trainers carried extra Depends....

 

Jeremy Lin, all in
http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/52427/jeremy-lin-all-in

I really appreciate the all-out effort that Jeremy gives in games like these but I do cringe a bit watching all of the abuse he subjects his body to when he goes at it like that.

 

Yeah, he needs to preserve his body or he's gonna get another injury. It's obvious he really wanted the W last night.

 

Good article.

Jason Kidd said Lin had one speed and had to learn how to play slowed down.

 

Where are the highlights of his 38 pts? All other player get video of highlight after game. Why not Jeremy Lin? Racism !

On a serious note, I didn't get to catch the game where are the highlights?

 

This makes a lot of sense and I really agree with this. I guess I kinda forgot the whole "youngest team" issue we have. But lemme play devil's advocate for a moment: wouldn't it be a better plan in the long run to let Harden run the point and Lin play the two? Let me elaborate.

As most of us may or may not know, one of Lin's biggest weaknesses lie in his jumper. Playing him at the two pretty much trains him to shoot. Fix that, and he's pretty much a triple threat.

And for Harden, even though he is extremely unselfish and has great playmaking skills, I honestly think he is still behind Lin in creating looks for his team mates. Why? Because even though he racks up a lot of assists, the space he creates doesn't primarily stem from his court vision or his excellent passing (NOTE: he has them but is still not as good as Lin in that regard). The looks his team mates gets is mainly because of one thing: Harden is an elite scorer who can pretty much get to the rim at will. The reason why I say Lin is a better playmaker than Harden is because Lin is neither as athletic or as polished a scorer as Harden, yet creates a lot of shots for his team mates. Plus, Harden commits a lot of turnovers handling the ball.

All of these minor flaws can be solved by giving Harden the ball even more. We have to remember that Harden isn't all that used to playing primary ball handler of the first unit.

Yeah, we might suck for a bit longer, but we can already see results from this counter-intuitive approach. Lin shot 4/5 from the three on the Spurs game (3 of which were catch-and-shoot attempts), and 2/3 on the game before that. I think if we stick to this approach a little longer and we get not only one, but TWO triple threats which is a huge step to being a championship caliber team. (SEE: Jordan+Pippen, Wade+Lebron, Parker+Duncan)

 

Here ya go... I miss Blinebury...

"http://hangtime.blogs.nba.com/2012/12/11/rockets-get-first-glimpse-of-linsanity/?ls=iref:nbahpt6b"

Good article too.

 

http://hangtime.blogs.nba.com/2012/12/11/rockets-get-first-glimpse-of-linsanity/?ls=iref:nbahpt6b

 

Yes he can talk and he owns your ass too.

 

This post deserved s its own thread.

 

well said, to develop the shotting skill, that's also my point few months ago, but play lin as a SG is painful to watch, same time it will hurt his confidence, to build the confidence or skills which one is prior, dont know

 

You make an interesting point. But something I think you are forgetting is that Lin isn't a perfect on the ball player either. I agree that he is a better playmaker than Harden but that doesn't mean Lin is the type of playmaker that can carry an offense by himself effectively for a long period of time. He needs to work on that.

The key to Lin being successful off the ball is improving his perimeter shooting. That is it nothing else really. Once that improves he can play off the ball some. Lin needs to improve on his on the ball skills. That takes a lot longer to improve at & frankly that should be his focus. You can sit alone in a gym by yourself & shoot a 1000 3's all day long to become a better off the ball player. But you can't learn how to run an offense effectively anywhere else aside from in an actual NBA game.

Just a few thoughts.

 

I say skills are more important to develop in a young player like Lin. If you have a young player not fix his flaws early on, it's way harder to develop him skill-wise. Take Stoudemire for example. Not working on his post game early on really limited his potential and caused him to struggle without a great passer behind him.

 

Something to take into account that Lin at about 3pt range last night was something like 6-7 instead of 4-5 because of stepping on the line twice. That's an amazing 3pt% that he probably wouldn't have if he'd not been so determined to fix it.

I think Lin's already has the earmarks of being a combo guard considering the strength of his all around game (as noted by boxscores during his shooting slump) and would also like to point out that Harden's in his 3rd year.

For reference, Harden with the OKC in only the 2011-2012 season has played a total of 1,946 minutes.

Lin in his entire career to date has played less than that: 1,881 minutes.

Harden's total min: 6,612

As in, Lin has less than 1/3 the experience Harden has. (~28%)

Hell, Parsons has more NBA experience than Lin has, and definitely more experience starting.

Just something for everybody to keep in mind as we watch these young guys go through ups and downs. It's fine to think that they can all still grow; it's fine to hope/believe that these young players can become more consistent and figure it out.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts34fXuXzKc

 

I agree skills are important to develop in a young player. But the skill that you are asking Lin to develop (better perimeter shooting) so that he can play off the ball more are things that he can do on his own time. He needs to improve his on ball skills as well. The only way he can do that is by playing on the ball in actual NBA games. You can't learn how to run an offense by yourself in a gym. But you can learn how to be a better perimeter threat by yourself in a gym. Just a thought.