Last year, many people raved about Ricky Rubio, a young, poor shooting, turnover-prone point guard, but who nonetheless had a big impact on wins and losses because of his defense and the style of offense he encouraged. That's Lin's worst case scenario, the way he's playing right now, a player that controls the game without shooting very efficiently. Last year, Rubio was #1 among starting points in steals-blocks-charges taken/40. Lin was #2. It should be clear from the preseason that Lin's defense is as good as ever. It should also be clear, from watching the Dallas game (and all the others), that this offense functions much better when Lin is on the court. Lin's floor is last year's Rubio. His ceiling is a better last year's Lin, someone who gets lots of points at the rim and the line and has a good jumper. Lin's shooting will probably return in the next couple of weeks, but even if it doesn't, Houston's going to win a lot more games than some people think.
I hate to say this but PG maybe the weakest position on the team this year after being a strength last season. Still I agree that we should be patient and give Lin more time. He just came back from a knee injury and I believe this is the first serious injury in his career so he needs to learn to come back from it. Dude is basically a rookie.
People saying he needs to get back to presurgery form-i'm wondering, how is his knee going to get better if he keeps playing? wouldn't that risk reaggravating it even further? People need to be playing only when the knees are fully healed. It doesn't look like Lin's is.
In terms of sports, it's easy to regain strength, but still have considerable work to do in terms of fine motor skills. I know this from playing Pool. I broke my arm when I was younger, once I was out of the cast even though I got my strength back very quickly, it literally took me months to get my stroke back. In anything that involves precision (like shooting/aiming), it's that sort of stuff that is the hardest to regain, especially if you've done rehab/worked out and have changed the composition and/or amount of your muscle mass. From my experience, it goes like this... Strength > Flexibility > Quickness > bulk muscle control (how hard/soft you do something) > Fine motor control (very small degrees of alterations in movement) So it would go something like this... the ability to push against someone (post), the ability to move quickly in a straight line (sprints), then the ability to move laterally (cuts), lateral quickness (changes of direction), distance shooting (not falling short of the basket), and finally precision shooting (accuracy). I think his performance curve is actually making alot of sense right now.
I believe Felton admitted that he was out of shape last year in Portland and before you say Felton's ceiling is Lin's floor let Lin get as many games under his belt as Ray before you make a judgement about that. Lin had a great run last year but his pedigree is an undrafted, 2nd tier athlete that no team saw his potential including the Rockets. Lin still has to prove otherwise.
I would love Jeremy Lin SO MUCH MORE if we still had Gogi and Lin was our backup PG. yes, I am still bitter about Goran leaving and morey not getting a deal done. Far superior player.
Comparing Rubio's defense to Lin is just silly. I don't want to bash Lin because I like him as a prospect but Rubio was an elite defender at the pg position last year. -the reason Ricky was good on defense was that he stayed in front of his defender and had great anticipation and length. The steals and charges were great but Lin is a fundamentally bad defender in many regards. He gambles a lot more than Lin and is a bad pick and roll player. He is bad at navigating picks, he neither goes over the pick nor under. What is does it what I like to call fake hustle. He runs into the pick and then tries to make a play while recovering. It is ok to get caught up on picks sometimes but Lin seems to get caught on ever pick. - Lin also overhelps, get lost off ball and takes excessive gambles. -Ricky Rubio was not turnover prone in comparison to Lin. --Rubio averaged 8 assists to 3 turnovers --Lin averaged 6 assists to 3.5 turnovers a game. ----The assist to turnover ratio is important when discussing these things. There is a reason why people don't mind how many turnovers Nash gets. The comparison is also very faulty because outside of stats Rubio is a different level of pg, passer and floor general. It really isn't fair to compare the two because Rubio is a different level as a passer and a defender. The only advantage that Lin had last year was scoring.
J.R. Smith had meniscus surgery in late February of 2007. He was back playing less than 3 weeks later. For that whole month of March 2007, he shot .385 from 3 point land. There goes your theory. Lin's had about 6 months to recover. That's 29 weeks. This should be concerning. With Lin's work ethic, you know he worked his butt off all summer to rehab, yet he's still not at full strength? What should have been a 6 week recovery is now up to 29 weeks? Huh? Something's wrong, his knee isn't right. I'm starting to think the Knicks might have known something...
Up to now Lin is disappointing. Still patiently waiting to see whether he will earn the respect back or not.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>For those losing sleep over @<a href="https://twitter.com/jlin7">jlin7</a>'s 5-game preseason sample size, take note of @<a href="https://twitter.com/johnhollinger">johnhollinger</a>'s comments in today's Rockets preview (cont.)</p>— Jason Friedman (@RocketsJCF) <a href="https://twitter.com/RocketsJCF/status/261547361841582080" data-datetime="2012-10-25T19:18:45+00:00">October 25, 2012</a></blockquote> <script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>"Lin will be real deal...simply does too many high-value things (drawing fouls, assisting at rim, steals & rebs) to not be effective player"</p>— Jason Friedman (@RocketsJCF) <a href="https://twitter.com/RocketsJCF/status/261547698237345792" data-datetime="2012-10-25T19:20:05+00:00">October 25, 2012</a></blockquote> <script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Entire piece can be read here by ESPN insiders: <a href="http://t.co/8wg0wj76" title="http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/preview2012/story/_/page/hollinger-hou-forecast/houston-rockets-outlook">insider.espn.go.com/nba/preview201…</a> @<a href="https://twitter.com/johnhollinger">johnhollinger</a>'s work alone worth price of subscription.</p>— Jason Friedman (@RocketsJCF) <a href="https://twitter.com/RocketsJCF/status/261548067763916800" data-datetime="2012-10-25T19:21:33+00:00">October 25, 2012</a></blockquote> <script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Respectfully disagree. Once again I can tell you don't now much about felton. He has a bad habit of always being out of shape not just last year. I have little respect for players that can't do the one thing that is necessary for being an elite athlete maintaining your shape. Nash hasn't eating candy in like a decade, Lamar Odom is fat once again & I have been blasting him on twitter. Felton is much suited as a back up (as many saw in Denver) & less suited as a starter. Eye test and advanced statistics back this up. And let's cut the crap about him being undrafted. Kwame Brown was drafted. Darko was drafted. Oden was drafted. Ben Wallace undrafted. Wesley Matthews undrafted. JJ Barea undrafted. Felton was projected to be a better PG than Deron Williams how did that turn out? The draft is an imperfect science let's not act like it is accurate 100%. And considering that the Lakers, GSW, Dallas all gave him offers after Lin was passed on in the draft (Donnie Nelson took Lin out to dinner prior to him choosing GSW) he was hardly unwanted. And let's not act like Lin doesn't have athleticism.
I haven't watched any pre-season games, I tried to watch it online but I found that to be extremely unenjoyable. So with that said, can someone who has been watching answer this statement. True or False: Jeremy Lin is the new Rafer Alston. My gut tells me he'll obviously be a bit better than Rafer, but I foresee their respective consistency largely the same. A potential candidate for whipping boy of the 2012-2013 campaign.
True. He's had all offseason to rehab his injury so its definitely concerning. But what if the injury's being used as a scapegoat for his lack of production?
The Rockets org has been spinning Lin's **** games lately. Bullard did it last night when Lin would turn the ball over in the paint saying it was his teammates' fault and now Friedman is quoting espn articles. I expect a lot of coddling for Lin this season from the Rockets. The Golden Goose's eggs are showing cracks.
Are they spinning or is it analysis? I can't remember who it was, said that Lin needs to learn how to fall otherwise he is going to get injured. Is that spinning? When they called out D-mo for making a rookie mistake in one of the previous game was that spinning or just analysis? Everything about Lin has become so extreme it is kind of insane. Why can't it be just in the middle, why does it have to be one extreme or another extreme?
even if Lin becomes a super star this season, and puts up monster numbers... this team would only have 1 superstar player on it... this team has a bunch of young guys with potential... and thats about it because this team is a blown up product of trying to get Howard how hard is that to understand I remember before Lin signed with the Rox... laughing at the Rox org... as both your twoo best point guards were gone... which seemed like hours apart from each other
