[Video] Jeremy Lin speaks with Houston media - 9/18/2012

It's not very difficult for an NBA team to employ a "force left and apply pressure" defensive strategy. Those are gaping holes in a PG's game, and I'm afraid it will only be further magnified for Lin because of who he is. Hopefully his hard work this summer has paid off.

 

Well James Harden & Manu are both left dominant & teams always try to force them to there weak hand and they don't cooperate. Derrick Rose forced Lin left all game & he still put up 15 & 8. He doesn't need to be perfect with his left he just needs to be good enough to punish teams who try to force him left. It's a work in progress & the rockets are a re-building team so it's not like there is a rush for him to improve right now.

 

Agree. HaHa!:grin:

 

Harden and Manu are SGs that don't have the ball handling responsibilities that Jeremy has, and the example you gave (while not an abysmal game by any stretch) was a very Rafer Alston-esque 4-11 night ending in a loss... not exactly a beacon of hope.

I do agree that, despite the competitive word from the Rockets camp, this will be a rebuilding year. Quite frankly, its in the best interest of our team going forward for it to be. But for Jeremy Lin, I think its a different situation. He is a "marked man" of sorts, due to his sudden success. There is a lot of disbelief regarding how he will perform - many think it was a fluke run, or think that the he will fare much poorer now that NBA teams have studied his game tape.

It's in Jeremy's best interest to do away with those naysayers as soon as possible, and consistent success it what I will take. People likely won't care if the Rockets play poor, but they will take note if Jeremy does, and they will be quick to criticize. Even within the Rockets fan base, I'm sure you can imagine some of the things that will be said if Lin is unsuccessful while Dragic and/or Lowry are.

I love the kid and I hope for the best. Its an unfair situation for him, but its reality. The eyes of the world are on him, and I hope they see a respectable left hand and quick, efficient decision making.

 

He may also have lost weight in terms of bones, connective tissues, internal organs or nipples.

 

Thanks for the response. Here is my take. First, teams tried to force him left before and despite that he still found ways around it he rarely cooperates. The Bulls game was probably one of his best games. This was his first time against Rose he had 15 points 1 rebound 8 assist 3 steal 3 TO. If you watched the game, yes it was a loss but it was a close loss & the Knicks lost because they got out-rebounded. On the defensive side he forced Rose to take 20+ shots to score his 30+ points it was one of Lin's best defensive games. I hope we aren't going to play the my statistics are better than your statistics game because that would be silly. Watching the game anybody could see that Lin played well very well against one of the best PG's in the NBA despite his 4-11 shooting.

Next point, I am aware that Manu & Harden are SG's & come off the bench but they also do a considerable amount of ball handling & offense generation for there respective teams & frequently play in the 4th quarter. Both those guys get considerable minutes where they are the primary playmakers or they are playing an off-guard type of role. There continued success being one hand dominant exemplifies the fact that it is not as big of a deal as everyone likes to make it out to be.

Third, I think this whole "marked man" thing is absurd & is driven by the media & fans trying to hype up a story. They have fodder to do that because of the attention he attracts & his contract but in the grand scheme of things players could care less about another mans money & the attention has significantly decreased because he is away from the NY spotlight. He is definitely at the top of the scouting reports (just like he was in NY) that is for sure. Nobody in there right mind can sit here and say that for 28 games NBA teams let Lin do whatever he wanted & did not bother to scout him. Lin's situation isn't any different from Kyrie Irving who is at the top of the scouting reports on a bad team. It has become popular to say he is a flash in the pan & a fluke to the point that Lin has now become underrated instead of overrated. His game isn't predicated on being a great outside shooting threat. It's based on using his quick first step to dribble drive & penetration & passing out to the open man on the wings. Scoring in isolation or off the dribble & using his high BBIQ & court vision to move the ball around & make the best pass to ensure a high percentage shot and make other people better. Unless he becomes fat, dumb, blind & slow I don't see how he can't continue to do what he did over that 25 game stretch (my guess is an average of 18 & 8).

Finally, in regards to Dragic being successful in Pheonix I am curious to see if people will say that it is the Dantoni system that is ensuring his success? After all that is what we heard endlessly about Lin. FWIW it is a bogus argument that I disagree with, either you got it or you don't & Dragic definitely has it. I know Gentry ran it last year & he will likely stick with it this year as well since it is a very effective system. In the grand scheme of things I think all PG's will be fine. Lowry will succeed in Toronto & help the Raptors win games. Dragic will succeed in Phoenix and put up nice numbers & Lin will succeed in Houston in a PG friendly offense that caters to his strengths & teammates that can help mask his weaknesses.

 

He has successfully undone the kobe beef massage symptom he sufferred before!

 

Best soundbite of the interview: "how can I make myself more dangerous?"

As for the whole left hand thing, Roxxy already posted about it, so I'll keep this short. The argument can be made even to people who haven't actually watched the games:
Since the media was already talking about Lin's lack of a left hand by the 3rd game, then of course it was already the scouting reports early on. Lin averaged 18 pts per game on 45 FG% as a starter. Pick your poison.
Either 1) Opposing defenses TRY to force him left, but he goes right anyway, getting his 18 pts that way;
or, 2) Lin can go left just enough to punish defenses for trying to force him left.
Anyone who insists that Lin cannot go left is saying that teams KNOW what he will do BUT CANNOT STOP HIM. That's makes Lin penetration sound more dangerous than he actually is! The criticism does not even make sense if you think about it.

If you watch the games though, option 2 is closer to the truth.

 

Jeremy Lin's left hand wasn't as bad as people made it out to be last season..... Heck, two of the most common highlight clips were Lin crossing over left on John Wall for a dunk, and the left-to-right behind-the-back drive in Philadelphia........... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfGpIyCD04U (Most behind the back dribbles by right-handed players are right-to-left.) Lin's left was weak, but not ghastly weak.

Lin's biggest weakness was dribbling into traffic and picking up the dribble. (The Miami Heat induced this more than any other team.) If he can avoid dribbling himself into trouble, he'll be fine.

If Lin had another weakness, it was foul trouble. His defense is going to surprise a lot of people, and in the fourth quarter, if NOT in foul trouble, Lin will win a few games with his defense. (The biggest myth on Lin is he "can't play defense". Video footage often shows the contrary. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRmfwKxqe4Q )

 

We can't go into a season thinking of just tanking. We should start the season playing to win at all cost and then re-evaluate the situation after 4 or 5 months.
If really a player worth tanking for emerges from the draft class, go for the tanking without looking back.

 

Other than Martin(who will be traded in February) and Delfino there really wont be any veteran's to sit down in the second half of the season to pull a tank job.

The youngsters are going to play this season. That is the definition of what NBA fans call "tanking" 95% of the time even though its really not that at all.

That being said there have been times where teams have tried to lose games on purpose, but its very very seldomly done. We saw it firsthand in the last game of the season Vs. the Hornets when Monty Williams shamelessly tried everything he could to lose that game.

Come to find out, the Hornets ended up in a three way tie for the worst record in the league that probably ended up being the reason why they landed the #1 pick. However, before that game the Hornets weren't tanking at all and were seriously giving teams a headache in the West with their hard nosed play, and the potential of their young players finally showing.

Point being- they only needed to lose one game on purpose to be in a position to get the #1 pick. They were already very close to being there anyways just by having a young team.

The Rockets are going to be a bad team naturally next year whether they are trying to win or trying to lose. If they end up being a mediocre/playoff bubble team then that means someone on their team turned out to be the next great NBA superstar. We should be so lucky for that to happen.

 

The medias keep playing the Tebowmania Game. So annoying.

Lin is so lucky to leave NY and Linsanity.

 

who knew last preseason we had 3 top 15 PG's on our roster

 

I've already written about how based on historical data, Jeremy Lin's 26-game run is almost guaranteed to not be just a fluke. However, my analysis compared him to guys that were already seasoned veterans putting up 19+ points/8+ assists/2+ steals stretches, as well as guys like Magic Johnson that far surpassed the 19/8/2 threshold (for example at age 27, Magic put up a stretch of 27 games where he averaged 23 points, 14 assists and 2 steals).

Thus I ran a new search, this time only for players who had stretches of 26+ games where they averaged within 10% of Lin's averages in points, assists and steals (17.5-21.5 points, 7.1-8.9 assists, 1.9-2.3 steals), and furthermore did it under the age of 25. Then I got their per 36 minutes averages over their next 3 seasons. The list is small because of the specific constraints, but here they are:

Code:

Player			Age	Season	From	To	G	GS	MP	FG	FGA	FG%	3P	3PA	3P%	FT	FTA	FT%	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS
Baron Davis		24	5	2005	2007	163	142	5773	6.7	16.5	0.408	1.9	6.0	0.318	4.1	5.6	0.727	0.8	3.5	4.3	8.4	1.9	0.4	3.0	2.9	19.4
Clyde Drexler		23	3	1987	1989	241	240	9238	9.3	18.5	0.501	0.2	0.8	0.241	5.0	6.3	0.792	3.0	3.5	6.5	5.8	2.4	0.7	2.9	3.1	23.7
Anfernee Hardaway	24	3	1997	1999	128	124	4790	6.2	14.5	0.427	1.1	3.4	0.306	3.9	5.1	0.774	1.2	3.4	4.7	5.0	1.7	0.5	2.6	2.1	17.4
Tim Hardaway		23	1	1991	1993	229	229	9156	7.8	17.0	0.463	1.3	3.7	0.348	3.4	4.5	0.771	0.9	2.7	3.6	9.0	1.9	0.1	3.0	2.3	20.4
Mark Jackson		23	2	1990	1992	235	171	6484	5.2	11.1	0.471	0.3	1.2	0.262	2.3	3.0	0.746	1.5	3.1	4.6	9.7	1.6	0.1	3.1	2.0	13.1	
Andre Miller		24	2	2002	2004	243	243	8774	5.3	12.0	0.440	0.2	1.1	0.219	4.2	5.1	0.815	1.3	3.0	4.4	7.9	1.5	0.3	2.7	2.6	14.9
Robert Pack		23	2	1994	1996	139	67	3610	5.8	13.4	0.434	0.6	2.0	0.312	4.7	5.9	0.793	0.7	2.9	3.7	8.9	2.0	0.2	4.5	3.2	16.9
Chris Paul		21	2	2008	2010	203	203	7720	7.3	14.8	0.495	1.0	2.6	0.377	4.4	5.1	0.859	0.7	3.7	4.4	10.6	2.5	0.1	2.5	2.4	20.1
Average			23.1	2.5			197.6	177.4	6,943.1	6.8	14.7	0.460	0.8	2.4	0.316	4.0	5.0	0.791	1.3	3.2	4.6	8.3	1.9	0.3	3.0	2.6	18.3

"Age" and "Season" refer to the the first time they averaged 17.5-21.5 points, 7.1-8.9 assists, 1.9-2.3 steals over 26+ games. As you can see Tim Hardaway was the only one to accomplish it in his rookie season. Most guys accomplished it in their 2nd or 3rd season and Baron Davis was the most veteran of the bunch when he accomplished it in his 5th season.

The rest of the data is their averages over the 3 following seasons. As a group, they did pretty well, averaging 18.3 points, 8.3 assists and 1.9 steals over their respective 3 next seasons, which bodes well for Lin. The most interesting of the group is Robert Pack, who like Lin was undrafted, had an unremarkable rookie season, and then put up similar numbers (18.8 points, 7.5 assists, 1.9 steals, and 4.2 turnovers per 36) in a 44 game stretch his second season at the age of 23. And like Lin, he struggled with turnovers. However the major difference was that in Pack's second year, he put up his numbers in only 20.5 minutes per game coming off the bench all but one of his games, whereas the majority of Lin's performances were as a starter. Nevertheless, Pack ended up having a fairly successful career as a starter, averaging 15.9 points and 8.7 assists per 36 minutes in 157 games.

So you can see there has been historical precedent when trying to evaluate Lin's situation. I'll admit to being a Lin homer but the numbers are there to support the possibility of Lin's future success.

 

If he had 10 lbs of nipple weight to lose that could explain his inability to go a certain direction. I don't know how, but it had to have played a role... right?

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-in-reply-to="248874598123331584"><p>@<a href="https://twitter.com/dmorey">dmorey</a> @<a href="https://twitter.com/pdpatt">pdpatt</a> @<a href="https://twitter.com/chandlerparsons">chandlerparsons</a> @<a href="https://twitter.com/jlin7">jlin7</a> @<a href="https://twitter.com/asikomer">asikomer</a> great to see practice court lights on early in a.m. 17 business days till preseason starts</p>&mdash; Ragnar Hartzheim (@Rags2Rockets) <a href="https://twitter.com/Rags2Rockets/status/248875164937371648" data-datetime="2012-09-20T20:03:57+00:00">September 20, 2012</a></blockquote>
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glad to see guys working

 

During the Linsanity run,
1 ) There were many good defensive teammates, Tyson(DPOY), Shumpert, Jared Jefferies, to backup Lin, so he could focus on offense.
2 ) Lin was not on the scouting reports and he improved a lot in the summer.
3 ) MDA system inflation.

BUT,
1 ) Lin's body didn't prepare to play heavy minutes suddenly.
2 ) The Knicks had bad chemistry and Lin had no training camp with them.

 

if i read the tweet correctly,ppat organise the training.good 2 know .

 

Please stop with he was not on the scouting reports. That's just bull. Avery Johnson said after the first Nets game that they had watched tape on him because he was just called back from the D-league and they wanted to know why and know more about his game. He wasn't even the starter or even back-up and they scouted him.

In Lin's first game as starter they were already forcing him to his left. The announcers kept saying 3 or 4 times that going left was his weakness, if they knew then I'm pretty sure teams also know.

 

there will always be Jeremy Lin Haters.... ALWAYS