Not really, at least there was hype on big nba forums like realgm and insidehoops. People were excited by his flashy passes and how he made his teammates better and set up the big 3.
I'm not even trying to argue who was better last season during their miraculous run. they posted similar stats on different and depleted teams. But Lin never outplayed Dragic like people suggested. btw ur numbers are way off as a starter Dragic's TS% was 61% last season as a starter Lin's TS% was 55% last season
First, in what world are traditional stats worthless? They may not paint as comprehensive a picture as advanced stats do, but they are far from worthless. Typical garbage assertion. Second, Lin and Dragic played 36 and 34 minutes as starters, respectively. If anything, Lin would benefit from the skew. Third, NYK had the 5th fastest pace in the league last year while Houston had the 11th. There goes your pace argument. Fourth, D'Antoni famously places the ball in his PG's hands. This is reflected by Lin's usage rating over his starter stretch (27%), already watered down by Woodson taking over and Carmelo coming back. Meanwhile Dragic was at 23% over his starter stretch. FYI, Dragic still beats Lin in TS, eFG, offensive rating and defensive rating, among others. Last, your counters are general and unconvincing. What context are you talking about anyway? Is this some torocan standard? Well, in any case, you're wrong, too. Conclusion: should have kept Dragic.
You're just selecting points out of context to make your argument convenient now. If you're going to use the D'antoni 'he had the ball in his hands' argument, he was only with D'antoni for Linsanity so you should use those figures only. After Linsanity, D'antoni was fired and Woodson was hired, where Carmelo Anthony was the first option and the offense stagnated to ISO offense(much like when Mike Woodson was a coach for the Hawks with ISO Joe Johnson offense). As a result, the offense slowed immensely. Go over to the Suns forum, cause last I heard Dragic was going to leave regardless if we got Lin or not. Lin succeeded and thrived as a first option. Dragic has had substantial playing time(20mpg+ a season) for 5 years now before putting up his run, Lin had his first playing time as basically a rookie and put up a historic run. Lin has shown he is clutch and he makes his teammates better. Lin is also younger than Dragic. If any rookie guards put up a season like Lin, most people would expect him to be a top 5 PG. Lin has that potential, which real professionals in the NBA saw and took a chance on. Dragic seems to be in his prime right now, Lin still has so much potential which is what Morey went for. Morey said already he wants all-stars that can make his team into a contender, and that's why he took the risk for Lin. You can say Morey is wrong, but he's a professional NBA GM that took a actual risk so maybe you should go complain to him. You say that he should have gone for Dragic, but obviously he saw some potential in Lin to be a top-tier guard(as did many fans) so he took a gamble. If you disagree with that, then maybe you should just stick to your safe choice Dragic and go watch the Suns. Also Lin this season is much better than last season IMO, except his aggressiveness leveled off and he's playing passive. But he has the potential to make his duo with Harden one of the best backcourts in the NBA.
Wow this thread. What started off as a really good idea & could have developed into a really awesome basketball discussion ended up becoming a **** show. Kudos to the OP for trying though.
Lin+Harden already great, no need other PG or upgrade, Don't wanna be Lakers NOW. WOW Lakers upgrade with all famous and master basketball, and what is the result? 0 - 2 nothing brotha, DO not touch LIN+HARDEN, if they are good, leave it, if you change what is good, then it could be damn failure
Fair enough, Dragic is good. Heck he had steve nash as his mentor. Even when Lin was in Knicks, there was some talk in the forums asking for Dragic to come to the Knicks. Posting and toasting folks. Stylist folks. Jlin is born from the depths of D-leauge. Jlin is not an anointed prodigy. In some ways he is the orphan b*stard son of the Rockets coming home.
And if Lin ever ends up being good as he's hyped to be, all the Dragic and Lowry fans should go leave the Rockets forums and go watch Dragic/Lowry and wait for the day they are better than Lin since they said Dragic/Lowry were much better and would prefer them to Lin. Jus' sayin.
It'll be several months before J Lin is up to speed. Surgery, rehab, and multiple head coaching changes, along with a trade, will test anyone. I don't think we can even fairly assess Lin until mid december. And we won't see anything approaching Lin at full speed, say, until around the all star break.
The numbers I cited were for the entire season. They are what they are. I would have preferred if you had acknowledged that the stats can point to different conclusions depending on how you arrange the data. I don't see the point of getting into a discussion if each poster is merely interested in 'winning' the argument and showing that the other is wrong, instead of actually having a real conversation about it. If your point is that the stats of Lin and Dragic are actually much closer than has been represented by other posters, I can certainly agree with that.
Nah. Most of us would never do that. We're Rockets fans, first and foremost. I like Lowry's and Dragic's game right now a little more than Lin's, but I like Lin's potential/ceiling far more than theirs.
PPG and APG without context tell us little. That's a fact. By adding minutes into the equation, it DOES add *some* context. IF all else remained equal, however it didn't over the season. NY underwent a coaching change, multiple roster changes, reductions in minute in the last half of the season, as well as a significant reduction in shots taken. True, however his Usage declined dramatically under Woodson, as well as the number of shots taken as he was asked to adjust his game. D'Antoni was only around for half of that stretch. Then it was Woodson for the other stretch. His role also changed as during his tenure STAT returned, Melo returned, JR Smith was added, and they went through a circus of injuries throughout his play (including injuries to Chandler and Jeffries). Once again, context. Yes those stats are higher, but they are actually quite small in terms of the difference. Lin FG% - .446 (171/383), Dragic FG% - .462 IF Lin scored .462 the number would be 176.9. A difference of 5.9 FG's... or a little more than 1.5 per 100. A difference to be sure, but given the small sample sizes of both players (25 and 28 games), not exactly earth shaking. It's not statistically significant enough to say without a doubt that Dragic is the superior choice. As for my other points, you can argue that it's unimportant, however that Lin's stats are within the same ballpark as Dragic's with 285 minutes in the NBA in his ROOKIE year vs Dragic's thousands upon thousands of minutes over a 6 year NBA career is not something that I would discount. Even if I accept that Dragic's performance was marginally better, that he's so late in his career development relative to Lin argues significantly on Lin's behalf. Lowry/Lin may be more clear cut, however Dragic/Lin is a much tougher argument in terms of saying that Dragic is definitively a better player or a better long term choice than Lin. I stand by my analysis, which is when you factor in historical player development, Lin has more upside, and is more statistically likely to improve significantly than Dragic. No offense to Dragic, he's a solid starting PG, but if I'm an owner and I'm looking at paying similar money for Dragic or Lin, I'll still take Lin every time -- even after discounting his marketing draw.
Lin fans, We all wish Lin to continue to develop into a top PG everyone wants him to be. He has showed flashes of brilliance but he is not there yet. You know, everybody is entitled to his/her opinion. A lot of posters here have watched Rockets for years or decades and many of them have good knowledge about Rockets players and NBA in general. It is perfectly natural that we hold our own opinion about whether Lin plays better or worse than our previous PGs such as Kyle Lowry, Goran Dragic or even Kenny Smith or Sam Cassell. Just because someone thinks "Dragic/Lowry is better" or "Lin plays ok but not spectacular" doesn't mean they "hate" Lin. Trust me, we all want Lin to succeed, with the Rockets of course. For your information this forum endured the emergence of YOF (Yao only fans) and TOF (TMac only fans) who are ultra-sensitive to criticism of their idols so you saw some veteran posters expected history repeats itself, which it did. I am not a great writer or anything. I am just trying to state the obvious which may not be so obvious to some of you. Let's just enjoy watching the Rockets, Jeremy Lin, James Harden, Omer Asik, Chandler Parsons, Carlos Delfino, Patrick Patterson, Terence Jones, Donatas Motiejunas, Royce White et al. Peace.
It's so funny reading ppl arguing over Dragic, Lowry and JLin. I am a fan of all three of them (not their teams, just the players) and am still following their games. Want them all to do well this year. But have a question for this board. How old is Dragic, Lowry and JLin? How many total NBA games has each played so far in their NBA careers? How many games has each started so far in their careers? Given the respective growth curves, who is showing more upside and projecting a better potential?
Regarding the Woodson change, he did not change the offense so much as he merely emphasized defense. He couldn't make any drastic changes without killing continuity. Regarding the stats you are citing, it seems that you are using a different set than the one I am using. Probably the stats for the entire year. I took their stats from the point last year wherein they started getting starter minutes because that is what we are comparing: their tenures as starters. I'd also take Lin's injuries into consideration in assessing the situation. He still seems like he's not completely back from the knee injury. Plus knee injuries are, as we all know, one of the worst injuries a player can suffer from. In terms of context, I will concede that he had to change his game upon the arrival of Stoudemire and Melo. However, you will then have to concede that his stats were inflated by the Linsanity run. If that's the case, then his numbers don't seem so great. He had the benefit of being an unknown player in terms of scouting and an insanely high usage right in a system built for PGs. You cant just cite context on one hand and then fail to consider that his numbers were inflated because of his circumstances. At any rate, as starters, Dragic beats Lin both in rudimentary and in advanced stats. It's a fact. Lin's number were drastically increased because of his Linsanity run. That should make up for the return of superstars Melo and Stoudemire. What exactly do you mean by 'historical player development'? That's pretty vague. I would argue that Dragic has more room to improve, given that he has more experience and is only 2 years older than Lin. He also has no injury history, and has just recently been given starter minutes. How can you even begin to assert that he's reached his ceiling when he has just begun to play as a starter? That's an assertion based purely on years in the league without accounting for the fact that he's just begun to play starter minutes, as earlier mentioned.
