Now is not the time to panic. Our team is heading in a great direction.

and your basing this on what? your gut? go back and look at the stats of past and present "elite" guards. just look at their first 2 years (although lin hasn't even played a full season's worth of games). their stats aren't exactly that great. look at stockton, nash, rondo, d will, etc. The only exceptions are CP3 and Rose.

 

Lin air balled the ball, but if you watched the game, Harden had the last shot and he didn't make it either. So let's not beat Lin up. People's hate for him leads to all kinds of distortion. Several press outlets have stated that the game was lost in the last 18 secs because of ISO ball. They actually watched the tape, imagine that. The players also Know what went down too. So please stop balming Lin for this loss. Lin actually solid ball, he blocked Lebrons, Wade and Ray Allen. I don't know what little experiment they have going with Harden, but it is not working for the rest of the team.

 

Still early in the season, and this is a big step towards the team gelling. Someone already said earlier, young teams that are still figuring things out will have good nights like this but have trouble closing. A ton of mistakes add up in the end, and some questionable calls by the ref but in the end we still had a chance to take the W and didnt perform. This is overall a positive thing to watch, and the game was entertaining. Someone should note that Harden kept us in the game in the first half lol when we were literally like 20-5 or something rediculous like that.

 

Uh not sure what you mean by fast and quick, hustle and toughness...if you look at any defensive stats, they are about the same and lin does have an edge on a few cats.

Where are the fact checkers when you need them? I'm lazy.

 

Watching the last 7 games, I now know why Harden was coming from the bench in OKC. He needed the ball and Westbrook wasn't willing to share. It was Westbrook and KD show over there. If rox is going to go all in with Harden, I think it is best for them to get a shooting pg, players like Paxson type. Or if they really want to make this work, I will even move Lin to play with backups and run the free flow offense with Carlos and Moris. Pretty much do what OKC did with Harden.

 

If things don't change, I think Lin would do better coming off the bench and being an actual PG with the second unit because the coaching staff clearly want Harden to be the PG for the first unit. Ironically, Harden's efficiency is taking a nosedive as is Lin's. I want the coaches for ONE GAME to try to have Lin be the primary playmaker/ball-handler and see how it turns out.

 

Rockets coaches aren't that smart. This is a staff that says the ball is getting too "sticky", but it's still ISO ball out there.

 

The next eight games are going to be crucial in seeing the potential of the team and the ability of the coaching staff. We will be playing strong teams with the exception of Portland, New Orleans and Toronto. I am hoping we do better than 3-5 over that stretch.

 

Well the entire point of starting Lin & Harden is that it makes it harder for the defense to just key in on ONE guy. If it is Harden starting with Lin coming off the bench, Harden is the only playmaker out there. So teams will just blitz him hard.

We saw that in the Pistons game when Harden was out there by himself & Lin was in foul trouble. That is why I said that the playmaking duties need to be split between Harden & Lin a lot more evenly. Right now it is Harden 80% Lin 20%. It should be 60-40 or 50-50.

 

Superstars are so rare in the NBA that even high-level draft picks are more likely than not to become average-to-good players, as opposed to superstars.

 

Honestly, I'm not sure I see that happening as long as McHale is unavailable.

While Coach Sampson has his strengths, he has multiple weaknesses that tend to work against Lin as the primary ball handler.

Coach Sampson was the head coach of the Oklahoma and Indiana teams for multiple years (reached the final 4, sweet 16, etc). His offenses were heavily geared towards a transition offense. It's not heavily focussed on the half-court set other than interspersed plays like 1-4 motion, 3-2 multiple options, etc.

He also had a tendency in OK/Indiana to load the responsibilities heavily onto a single Star player, then play option to the rest of the team.

This current Rockets offense is starting to resemble it in many ways.

After he left Oklahoma, he was an asst Coach under Scott Skyles for the Bucks. While Skyles is an excellent coach, he is known primarily for his defensive schemes, NOT his offensive schemes.

Coach Sampson joined the Rockets just last year, and personally I'm not sure whether he is capable or flexible enough in thinking to maximize both Lin AND Harden having never coached an actual NBA team at a Head Coach level, and having such a limited resume (1 year with the Rockets, 2 years with Indiana) as an Assistant Coach.

Here's to hoping that McHale gets well soon.

 

I haven't followed sampson's career at all. I'm judging his performances based strictly on his performance this season.

Sampson has 2 key characteristics:

1. extremely critical of his players. The time to correct a player is right after their mistake. Do it on the floor, on the fly. Don't wait until after the game, when the player is already upset after a loss. The player doesn't have the opportunity to correct the error on the floor, and they are left to stew about the critical comments between games.

2. sampson is not bright enough to correct players on the floor, or to guide them in-game. He corrects them AFTER the game, in PUBLIC. Again, avoid public humiliation and give the player a chance to right themselves while the game is still ongoing.

3. sampson is laughably iso-hero ball dependent. To a fault. Every time knows what's coming, years ahead of time. No scouting necessary.


Seriously, sampson is an idiot. He's too stupid to play call in game, then b****es his players out for not knowing what they're doing AFTER the game.

It's going to take too long to unravel the various layers of stupidity in a single post, even based upon a couple of games.

Morey and Les have got to be worried. And they have a right to be. Sampson's basketball IQ is rock bottom. And the fans will suffer for it.

 

edit:

3 characteristics

every team

 

Smaller sample size than Jeremy Lin's ...

 

what amazed me was that i was one of the few people in my facebook network happy with the game. all of a sudden i was seeing analytic breakdowns (pics included) of how harden is a ball hog and is destroying our team, how lin is trash etc. granted harden wasted some valuable time and threw up some bad shots and lin did choke on that shot...

but what about the defensive rotations taking place? what about that sweet fastbreak pass from lin to parsons for the slam? what about asik taking in all those rebounds and showing patience under the basket on offense? to me, that's what i get excited about...especially in a young inexperienced team.

i know the people making the knee jerk threads are just incredibly loyal fans frustrated and wanting to see their favorite team win...i get it. but let's just flip the perspective like the OP suggests and praise the flashes of potential these guys are showing.

 

I've never felt worse about our team than now, and I've been an avid fan since the title days.

Literally despise all the moves (besides the Harden deal) that we've made of late, and everyone has such a false confidence as though picking up a Millsap or J.Smith will propel us to contender status. The ceiling for our team with one of those two is a 5 seed and an early playoff exit.

The fact is that there are very few true superstars in the league, and none are feasibly attainable in the near-future. So we can throw that plan out the window.

The only other way to win (if there is one) is to build an incredibly balanced, well-coached team that's intelligent in its salary management. And in my opinion, we've already thrown this option out the window with the deals we've handed out (particularly with Lin). Not to mention our terrible coaching, but that can be fixed more easily.

 

Duly noted.

 

Harden is making $80mil. How is that a "rookie deal"?