Why are June users auto-LOFs? Lin didn't even visit the Rockets until early July and nobody thought he was going to actually become a Rocket until the last minute in mid-July. I'd be very impressed with any "LOF" who had the foresight to join in June before Lin to Rockets was even a remote possibility.
Oh wait, that's me! Rockets are relevant again! I asked my friend in the US to get me a Rockets Lin jersey to hang beside my 17 NYK jersey. Guess, which other jersey it hang beside, 23 Michael Jordan. Yeah, that's Linsanity. If Lin will not really pan out, it's fine by me. I'll wait for the next NBA sensation to follow. Guess, real Rocket fans should be happy, they got additional fans to follow the rockets. Heck, I'm even checking everything there is to know about the rooks. Marcus Morris? Checked him out too.
To add on: kobe, lebron, 2 internationally recognizable names did not even warrant me to follow NBA. Not even thinking of getting their jerseys. I have series of air jordan shoes, i dont have kobe or lebron even if my friends are wearing those. Im waiting for Lin Nike to hit our local stores. Yeah, Linsanity. Cant wait for the season to begin!
If we get 1 intelligent fan and 1000 stupid fans because of Lin, I'd welcome him aboard. The intelligent fan will be repped, and the dumb fans will never gain enough rep for anyone to actually care. Their was an extremely good post from a LOF not to long ago(if I remember his name, I'll post it) and I'd gladly sift through pages of LOf crap in order to read it again. With that being said, there are plenty of posters that post crap that aren't Lin only fans. I'd be willing to bet that the average basketball knowledge of non-LOf fans isn't even that much greater than a LOF(ancient history about our championships doesnt count, i can google that. I mean actual basketball knowledge)
We dealt with that exactly 10 years ago after we had drafted a tall dude from China. I was once labeled YOF because of my join date.
Wow, exactly a decade since. Am new to rockets, but Yao in a decade was not able to bring a chip to houston. Let's see what Lin can do in a decade. Same as Yao, looks like Lin is likely to get injured. Wish i will be wrong.
after having been checking on this website for a while, I joined yesterday, but as a one-day-old infant, I think I have the same right as anybody else here to voice my opinion. Being young should not deem me as inferior. Please don't give me that "I am a long time die hard fan, and you are just a bandwagoner" crap.
new team, new style, new fans. out goes the old, in comes the new. and then in 2 years, all the Lin, Lamb, White, Asik, Motie, and Jones only fans will be complaining about some new player's only fans.
I'm not sure where y'all got the idea that people here think Lin fans don't have the right to post/voice their opinion. For the most part, members here don't think or say that. Now, they may decide to not have a discussion with your or cut one short, but you still get to say what you want. For the record, X-player only fans are the fans who will put the player first above the team. If we win, it'll be because of him, we lose, it'll be because he didn't get help.....always in the defense of x-player. It's also likely they didn't follow bball much, if at all, before him, so they end up being upset over a lot of things, which just makes them even more pro x-player.... Obviously, there are Lin fans and Lin only fans. There is a difference. Too early to clearly tell which is which, but insulting people in Lin's defense is usually one clear sign of a LOF. Just keep it civil, remember you're on a Rockets board, not a Lin board, and you'll be ok. Also, remember that it's not just up to us to welcome you, but also up to you to remember you're new and that may mean you're not familiar with everything or everyone. It may behoove you to chill out initially.
Virtually no one older than 12 or so just follows a team. Everyone has ideas about who they think are the best players, what line-ups should be used, who isn't getting enough time, etc. Then people make predictions, sometimes implicit predictions, off those ideas. And then people want those predictions validated. Basketball is a complex sport with subtle interaction effects[1]. Another thing people like to do is estimate how important each players' contribution is to a team's wins and losses. Right now there's a clash between an influx of people who follow Lin and want to see their predictions of his ability validated and incumbent fans of Houston divided among several motivations: Some are just as excited and expectant that Lin is the difference maker LOFs say he is, some are taking a wait-and-see attitude, and some seem hostile. "For the record, X-player only fans are the fans who will put the player first above the team. If we win, it'll be because of him, we lose, it'll be because he didn't get help.....always in the defense of x-player. It's also likely they didn't follow bball much, if at all, before him, so they end up being upset over a lot of things, which just makes them even more pro x-player...." I've seen this phenomenon on some Lin-only fan sites, but where is that here? It must be a tiny fraction of posts discussing Lin, cos I haven't seen it. Being a fan of Lin, defending his record, posting detailed stats about his game, etc...none of that by itself is evidence of the above. It's not clear that some sort of Platonic team-only fan would be preferable to fans that follow players anyway. It's also not clear that team fan sites are meant to cater to these hypothetical Platonic team-only fans. I, for one, grew up in Seattle. It's with great agony that I watch my boyhood team go to the Finals with players that were drafted for MY team. I don't have the luxury of belonging to a tribe. I follow story lines now. Aside from that, there's no reason why player-following fans can't be some of the most knowledgeable and insightful posters on a site. When I frequented knickerblogger.net, there was this dude Ruruland that annoyed the hell out of most everyone because he was a Carmelo-only fan. The thing is, he was one of the 3 or 4 most eloquent, deeply-researched, and insightful posters on the site. He made hundreds of valuable contributions and the discussion was immeasurably improved due to his involvement. If things go well, Platonic Houston-only fans and LOFs would both get what they want. The only thing that niggles at me is a seeming undercurrent of folks who seem overly pessimistic about what you'd think would be an exciting new player. Like, if I was a fan of a team and we got a 24 year who played at near All-Star caliber in his first 25 starts last year (top 40 in PER and adjusted +/-) I'd be really, really hoping that he continued to play like that...maybe even better than that since young players usually get better. I'd be really, really hoping that all those things the LOF were saying were true, that he makes the whole team play a lot better. But, hey, I'm not here to tell anyone what makes a true fan...there's enough of that going on already. Folks like Lin because he's Asian and/or he doesn't look like an NBA player[3], and/or he's from Harvard and/or he wasn't drafted...PLUS, he's a demonstrated winner. Please don't be uncharitable and pretend it's just about irrelevant details or hype. No one is beating down Yi Jianlian's door or Jimmer Fredette or Scott Machado, all of whom America would love to get behind if he put up 19 and 8 for a couple months and carried a .300 team on his back. If Houston doesn't win and Lin is inefficient, LOFs will be gone as fast as they came. Hoping for this outcome is a little like hoping your nose is cut off to spite your face. As they say. [1] Although interaction effects aren't necessary to explain nearly as much variation among NBA-caliber teams as some folks want to believe. [2] Different from "he looks like me effect". My favorite story in the NFL right now is Russell Wilson cos he doesn't "look like" an NFL quarterback[1]. [3] And, oh by the way, why doesn't ESPN mention the BS PI call against Seattle on 3rd down of the Packer's last TD drive when they're talking about how bad the calls were? That last bad call just corrected the game, it didn't blow it.
^^^ the LOF phenomenon hasn't really started in full force here. That'll come, once they start playing. There has been a hint of them, here and there, in this thread, but they didn't post much, just enough to stir things up. And I don't think we're pessimistic about Lin specifically. You've got to remember Houston took several steps back by cleaning house and going really young. The fans who have been here realize tons of losses are a real possibility and that's never good for any fan. Meanwhile, Lin fans come in excited about their player and his future, but as new Rockets fans, they're not fearing the drop off that's coming this year.. Lin may be an all-star talent, but remember, we had two of those point guards last year.
LOFs just get upset when Lin's playing sample size is considered too small to be seen as a great player, yet eyeballing a few games is a big enough sample size to criticise him. Anyway, LOFs I'm excited and with you as long as you dont claim him to single handedly win every game. And for the hardened old timers that have seen potential stars come and go, I hope you get a taste for hope again when we make it to the play offs this year :grin:
