I knew people would completely overblow Lin's performance when the game finished. Single game or even two game spectacular performances are great for the record books, but in the end don't mean nearly as much in the grand theme of things. People like to bring up all time greats because it will look pretty next to Lin, but everyone knows Lin is not in the same universe as those players. Going 18 and 7 for a whole season while shooting over near 45% and playing good defense>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> going 38 and 8 or whatever for two games Again I'm not saying Lin didn't put on a spectacular performance yesterday, it's just the records and all time greats are bringing up don't mean much.
Who cares? An outlier is just that, an outlier. Our pace is through the roof and it is going to inflate stat totals.
I don't quite get what your age argument is striving for. Are you saying that Lin is the equivalent of a 27-year old of yesteryear, therefore he's not really a young player? Firstly, NBA players hit their prime in their mid-to-late 20s not because that's when they hit their physical peak, but because generally speaking, that age is when they've accumulated enough knowledge and experience to truly realize their potential. Players straight out of college could probably outjump and outrun many of the established stars in the NBA, but they can't compete with them b/c they don't know the intricacies of a complex team sport. Biologically speaking, young men hit their pure physical peak in their early 20s. Just look at the purely athletic sports like sprinting and swimming. By their late 20s, guys like Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt will be washed up. It's only in a select few team sports that players hit their peak in their late 20s, and that's b/c they have to learn how to play with others, as opposed to dominating physically on their own. Secondly, Lin only scored 4 more points in OT. Is there really that much of a difference between 38-7 and 34-7? And remember that Lin got a couple of treys taken away from him due to him grazing the line. So if he got 38-7, he's potentially great. But if he got 36-7, he's a scrub? Laughable.
First of all, I'm far from a Lin only fan. Secondly, Lin has been far from Abysmal this season. Lin has had a pretty decent season. Look at Tony Douglas' play in the games this season. That has been abysmal. Lin has done a better job of taking care of the ball, and running the team. Lin has had some weaknesses in his game no doubt. But once Harden was on the team, Lin was never going to be the star, and franchise player. He's done a decent job of running the team's offense. That's what he should do. He hasn't been spectacular, but he certainly hasn't sucked or been abysmal.
It would only be an outlier if Lin were a veteran and there was a comprehensive body of work that we could compare his great games with. But Lin hasn't even started a full season's worth of games yet, and already, his resume is filled with some truly spectacular examples of what his potential is. That's no slam dunk, but as Nate Silver said, chances are that Lin will at least be a good PG. Players almost never peak at the very start of their careers (with Tyreke Evans being the seemingly unique exception). Also, you must not think very highly of Steve Nash either since he achieved greatness in a system that definitely inflated his stats.
The Lin haters on this board should be banned. I have never seen so much irrational hate directed towards a player on the team that the board supposedly supports. I thought Knicks boards were bad but this board makes them look civil, mature, and objective.
You're acting as if Lin is some old journeyman whose ceiling as already been established. The reason why these comparisons with the greats are made is because Lin is a young player and people are still unsure of what his potential is. These games do give glimpses of what may lay in the future though.
It's obvious that you don't rate Lin nor his potential very high but what does that have to do with explaining the cherry picking? Tocoran was just showing how rare it was to have 2 games of 37 and 7 and you called it cherry picking. Please explain how that is cherry picking instead of ranting your opinion of Lin as a basketball player.
No, it is an outlier for his production this season. The discussion they were having was about stats this season. There is no arguing against it being an outlier if you know what an outlier is.
It is indeed quite comical. There was some joker in this thread, or another one, who tried to disqualify Lin's game last night because he shot too many 3 pointers. Yeah, fo realz. I guess we can rub out Reggie Miller and Ray Allen and Larry Bird from the record books then.
You can't determine what an outlier is until you've got a representative sample. I think we can all agree that Lin's body of work so far is not yet comprehensive enough to be a representative sample, which is why we scrutinize every game of his so much. We're all trying to figure out what this guy is made of.
That just isn't true. You can definitely have an outlier in a sample size of 20. Lin's game is an outlier for the season so far. Only time will tell if it stays that way for the rest of the year.
^dumbest post of the year. Lin has probably been the best perimeter defender on this team so far. on top of that, his help defense is excellent. he's also being relied on to do a lot on the offensive end. Asik is our best low post defender. he does a great job blocking and rebounding but isn't asked to do much more than that. Douglas, on the other hand was torched by pretty much by everybody he's guard. yesterday was a good example of this whenever he's covering Parker.
Sure it is an outlier. It would be an outlier for almost all of the players in the NBA. Still, Lin having two 37 and 7 games in 45 career starts gives me hope that he has potential to grow. I think for most people, this would be an encouraging sign seing Lin having a great game that resembled a game from Linsanity last year.
