About 20 percent of our experts aren't sure Jeremy Lin will live up to his big contract with the Rockets. During the offseason, hope springs eternal. But not every newcomer will wind up being a great fit on his new team. Who will prove to be the worst acquisition of the offseason? For foresight, we surveyed 100 of ESPN's best basketball minds, including contributors from ESPN.com, the TrueHoop Network, TrueHoop TV, Daily Dime Live, ESPN TV, ESPN Radio, ESPN Deportes, espnW, ESPN The Magazine, ESPN Insider, ESPN Fantasy, ESPN Games, ESPNDallas.com, ESPNLos Angeles.com, ESPNBoston.com, ESPNChicago.com, ESPNNewYork.com, ESPN Stats & Information, ESPN Topics and ESPN Analytics. To participate in the discussion and perhaps get your opinion published on this page, #NBApicks is the Twitter hashtag to use. Or you can just follow along @NBAonESPN. To be clear, we are not talking about the worst player per se but the one who (considering expectations, price, etc.) will have the biggest negative impact or the most disappointing season, or will wear out his welcome first. Here's the voting breakdown:
This seems silly. The rockets are rebuilding so he can play through his mistakes and nobody will care because the roster won't be winning many games. I would have thought Howard would get a vote because his back is still a question mark. Joe should be higher because of all the hype surrounding the Nets. Felton should definitely be higher considering how terrible he played in Portland, how much money his new contract is worth despite his bad play. and the fact that the Knicks are in "win now mode". But I get why some would see Lin being up there.
In all fairness, who else has a higher ratio of expectations to talent? I mean, sure I think Beasley might be a failure. But the Suns didn't stake anything on him and there's no hype for him. Howard? Bynum? Even if they don't bring the wins, they are not going to be total flops...they'll still get their flashy stats.
Wait... so they're saying 80% believe he will live up to the contract? I think this should be looked at in a positive light.
Lin is tied with Joe Johnson for #5 on the best newcomer list. http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/8296725/2012-nba-summer-forecast-best-newcomer
"About 20 percent of our experts aren't sure Jeremy Lin will live up to his big contract with the Rockets" They don't have any "experts", per se. So 20% of zero is zero. Plus Lin is going to make $5M this year, just about the league average. I'm sure he can at least play like an average NBA player.
Overhyped for sure. I honestly think Jeremy Lin will be good and we will be able to make a case that he justifies his contract. But hardly anyone on earth has been hyped as much as he has been the past few months. That part is going to make all of the casual fans and bandwagoners turn on him when the team doesn't have much success.
Everyone is stupid that doesn't judge in our favor. Anyways I don't think lin will be bad, but I do think the expectations are too high. Bynum/Crawford are dumb picks. As long as Bynum is healthy(I know thats questionable) he's gonna ball and he will definately be better than any center philly has had in a LONG time. As far as Crawford is concerned all he has to do is come off the bench and score and he'll do that.
Horrible title of the article. Worst newcomer based on not meeting expectations is not worst newcomer. I can see why people would have him as having the worst expectations versus talent ratio. I think he'll do very well in Houston. He has a chance to be very high on the ppg list this year due to lack of scorers with the Rockets. I think the casual fans will still love him. It is just whether he plays efficiently with major minutes.
But...if he had stayed in NY than the same 20% would have said he would have the biggest positive impact on his new team. He's also the only non-African American on the poll, so clearly the poll and the voters are racist.
I think it would have helped us out a little to know what those "expert's" average expectations were. I mean if they expect that Lin is going to average 22/10/5 then sure, I would vote for him as the #1 player most likely to come up short. It's funny to me that Dragic, who started about the same number of games last year and signed a deal for about the same annual salary, received only 1 vote. I would think that Lin and Dragic would be projected to have around the same type of stats. Besides, do those same experts understand that this current Rox squad is not filled with proven scorers? Lin, who is a proven scorer in the small amount of games he has started, is going to be asked to carry a heavy load on the offensive end. This fact alone will probably help him come close to meeting most expectations...at least those that aren't absurd.
I'm going to go on a limb and assume that Jeremy will still be asian when the season starts. Jerseys/tickets sold. Hype intact. Expectation met.
Well the rockets already have their share of white players to appeal to the white demographic. Doesn't matter if they suck or not.
