I think the basic point you're making is that 'Scouts certainly care about keeping their jobs as scouts, therefore there must be a legit basketball reason why no NBA team drafted him.' Let's just follow through with this reasoning. If you are a scout, and no one else in your line of work has given Lin a good evaluation, then it is less likely that you will. Because you are afraid to risk your job by vouching for someone that no one else vouched for. If you care about job security, it is safer to conform to the general opinion, because if you are wrong, you will look especially incompetent by having a stand-out opinion. It becomes a vicious cycle from the very beginning. "If Lin was actually good, then another scout in my line of work would have given him an athletic scholarship out of highschool." "If Lin was actually good, then another scout in my line of work would have pushed for a NBA team to draft him." Someone who wants to have job security will be more likely to play it safe and follow precisely the circular logic that you are using, but that is not the same thing as giving an evaluation for basketball reasons. It's rating him for job security reasons.
Looks like this is morphing into an upside thread. There are different categories of 1's. Lin and Kyrie are scoring one's. Rubio is primarily a distributor. Both types of 1's can have highly successful careers, but in different ways. I project Rubio out to be a 11-13 ppg scorer in his prime and I really doubt he even shoots enough to consistently get in high end of that projection season to season. I haven't seen Kyrie play much at all. From what I've seen, he's got great speed and is fantastic at pushing the pace. His future is difficult to predict since he's on such a bad team, with iffy management/ownership. Even though Lin may feel as if he's coming off a NY high, he's actually been granted a reprieve from a bizarrely dysfunctional NYK front office, and a jealous, low self esteem CAA/SAS cabal/faction going nowhere fast. These are 3 great young players all playing in small/mid markets. Of the 3, the Rockets have the most alert and aggressive management, which gives them a slight but noticeable edge. But in the era of superstar-driven alliances, the forecast at best is sunny but overcast for all 3 teams.
thats a good point, but you could also have a scout who wants to be the one who saw what no one else did, which could launch him into a more secure position or view with his boss.....given that lin was undrafted, it was a low risk/high reward move, to give him the chance. If they had to waste a high pick to get him, then i'd be more likely to agree they were scared to stick their neck out for him. Its very likely that guy would be on the Rockets' staff, if we'd kept Lin post-gasol trade.
RV, if you haven't seen Lin play all that much, and obviously you're not basing it on stats, or by the fact that Lin at least equaled and probably outplayed both of them last year during their head to head, what are you basing your opinion that Lin isn't on their level on? Other people's opinions? It sure seems like you're doing a lot of that. Is it because they played 20 more games than Lin? Because somehow I think that were Lin to have played the whole year last year with the same stats, your opinion would've been the same. Is it because of their substantially greater past accomplishments, cuz Lin took a weak squad and took the State championship in high school gaining the California State D2 Player of the year award, and pretty much turned around his entire college team and program and made them respectable. Is it cuz they won more games as the leading point guards of their respective teams? (Hint: They didn't) Is it cuz they are bigger, faster, and stronger than him? I would like to know why you don't believe they compare. IMO, I love all 3, but I believe Lin would've had a better year than at least one of them. I think 17 and 8 is not out of reach, whereas it would be for Rubio. BTW, It's unfortunate that Rubio may be out for the beginning of the season (am I right about that?). He's got game. As for Kyrie, he's just boss. However, I have a hunch that Lin will give him a run for his money. He already pretty much showed up Wall, the previous year's top draft pick.
What are you even talking about? Did I not fully say that he was a much different player then than he is now? When he went undrafted he wasn't half as good as he is now. So yes on court stuff as well as a multipilicty of other things contributed to him going undrafted. This is foolish and now I know for sure that you don't know what you are talking about. They didn't use him properly in GSW and why would they he went undrafted lmao. What team in there right mind would play an undrafted kid unless they absolutely had too especially GSW when they had Curry & Ellis. Only reason the Knicks played him was because they had no choice. And he wasn't even that good back then, when they played him in garbage time he was terrible. And if you put Rubio & kyrie on that team obviously they would have played because they were top picks so they would tailer make there entire offense around there skill sets. I will prove it to you. 42.5 %of his plays were the pnr. When using the pnr he went to his left more than he did to his right. So this proves that he went to his left a lot more than you claimed. Now let's look at his ability to score, Lin's PPP was 0.797 which is above average. Now let's look at Lins total pick-and-roll PPP (including both scoring and pass-out situations) was 0.893. So from these two numbers we can conclude that Lin was able to score & pass at an above average rate on the pnr. If he was going to his left a lot more frequently than his right when using the pnr then we can conclude that he was good at using his left hand more than his right to be an above average pnr player.
I do see why the scouts missed him coming out of college. But then again, they shouldn't have. All the signs were there, it's just that these days, it's too much about finding that NBA speed or jumping ability, or that killer jumpshot, instead of how well they actually can play the game of basketball in all its facets. As I mentioned earlier, I believe Lin's greatest advantage is that, despite his current weaknesses, he can lead a team to wins and controls the flow of the game better than IMO Kyrie or even Rubio. He is one calm, fearless, collected, clutch kid.
Some of the biggest homers in existence lurking in this thread. I like Lin but he'd be the first to admit he's nowhere near Rubio's or Kyrie's talent level. The amount of pressure you guys are putting on an undrafted player who's only had 25 games as a starter is insane.
Jesus, i didn't even notice that most of the people that are arguing with me joined Clutchfans THIS SUMMER. Some of you are LOF. Some of you haven't read all of my posts, so are asking me stuff i already answered. And some of you just disagree with me, which is fine. And when i see SAS, i think spurs, so that'll tell you how little i pay attention to that man. And no it doesnt mean i'm a spurs fan :grin:
Someone's losing his arguments and here come the attacks. I was here before you so I must be right. You're a Lin fan you must be biased. Soon it will be about language proficiency and things like that. Yup. Saw those on the Knicks board before.
You first stated that the Rockets told Lin to work on his left. You said that as it was a fact. When asked about the source, you said everybody knows about his left, and explained your assumption. So you made "facts" up to spread, basing on your assumption.
Says the guy who lurks and only pops in to talk sht. If you're really new here, you shouldnt be talking like you know how things usually play out here. The LOF are real and biased, just like it was with yao, tracy, and so on. You think it's a coincidence that the majority of poster jumping in to defend Lin joining when Houston signed him? You also need to learn the definition of "some".
Well not really fair to compare him to Irving and Rubio. Irving is a 1st overall pick and its rare for rookies to perform so well in their first season. He is a beast and will soon be a top 3-5 PG in the league. Maybe Rubio is a lot more talented than Lin I am not sure(He definitely has more talent since he is younger). He is a better passer, playmaker, and has better court vision. He is also a better defender but he is an extremely poor scorer. As in even worse than Kidd and maybe Rondo in their rookie years. Point guards who are unable to score run inferior offenses to those that can score/shoot and space the floor. This is part of the reason why players like Nash and CP3 run elite offenses while Rondo has run horrendous offenses. Rubio's impact actually comes more from the defensive end imo. Good player but he needs to improve his scoring A LOT. I don't think Lin is even close to Kyrie talent wise but if he keeps at it I think he can be a top 5-10 PG at his peak.
I love to read those arguments. Thanks for all of you; I learned a lot. Many time when I heard SAS screamed “Can not go left, D-leaguer player” I was lost. I asked myself, in past ten years, why only Lin, not other superhero, can give us “Linsanity” from New York. Is it true? Only “D-leaguer player” (not superstar) makes the phenomenal in the leaguer?
I know, right? By my latest calculations, Kyrie's talent level is at a minimum 5-7 times greater than Lin's. I mean, it is almost over 9,000! In all my professional career of talent measurements, his is by far THE biggest, THE bulgiest, just exploding with THE most talents I have ever seen. I mean... his on court production is fairly similar to Lin's... BUT GIMME DAT TALENTS!!!!!111
It is interesting Rubio and Irving are flipsides of each other on offense and defense. Irving being the worst defender in the PG position, and Irving among the best. Irving can score while Rubio is weak in shooting and finishing at the rim.
