Some observations on Lin's games this season

It'll be plenty of bricks based off the early observations of this season. And not jsut from Lin

 

He doesn't trust his shot for nothing. He always pump fakes away good shots.

 

Why do we need this thread again?

 

He's a brick. house.

 

Tldr: Lin solid. Everything bad cuz injury. He gonna be best soon.

 

What some members post on Clutchfans on a day-to-day basis:

LIN LIN LIN LIN LIN LIN LIN LIN LIN LIN LIN LIN LIN HARDEN LIN

:grin:

 

Or I should say, on a Lin-to-Lin basis.

 

I heard he was not a good shooter to begin with.

I only watched his play when the Linsanity thing started. I found his jumper was more than decent. Not only that, he had all sorts of offense moves: mid-range jumpers, 3 pointers, tear drops, and extraordinary ability to finish in traffic.

This season I had seen none of that. He was able to penetrate but he had a lot of trouble finishing baskets, his mid-range or long jumpers were beyond ugly, some of them didn't even have a prayer to go in. He makes Rafer Alston looks like Ray Allen. And so far I have seen him making one tear drop attempts.

You can blame all those on his injuries. But I doubt such a small surgery has that much an impact on his scoring ability, especially his shooting. I have suspicions that Jeremy was just playing out of his mind during the 25 game stretch and we had seen the very best of him.

Of course he can still improve because he is still very young. But if he gonna do this Asian tour type of thing every year during the summer and attending non-stop events for one full month without improving his weakness, he will have trouble staying in the league for very long.

 

Deron Williams shot 40% last season. This is a 6 game sample size. He needs to play more games to really gauge him as a player.

 

His USG rate is below league average. Until his USG goes up we won't see any of that. If we isolate for PG's playing 30+ minutes a game like Lin is NBA average for USG is now 22.68 Lin's is 19.66 That is insane considering him & Harden are really the only scoring threats on the team.

People can say what they want about his perimeter shooting teams definitely don't respect it. But interms of his ability to turn the corner around a screen or a pick him & Harden are really good at that. There is a reason why teams pack the paint against the two of them to prevent them from getting into the lane because that is where they are at there best.

He isn't being used enough nor is he being used the right way & until that happens what you said is incorrect.

Once again I think people constantly undersell how long it takes to get everything right after knee surgery. I don't care if it was ACL or meniscus or whatever it takes time for everything to click into place. I personally think he is healthy, he has his quickness & explosiveness but I still think he has a ways to go before everything really starts to click. Compounding that is the issues surrounding our offense (or lack there of), the current structure of the team (lack of a post threat who can finish the pnr like a champ).

Finally, I really could care less what Lin does with his free time. If he chooses to spend his summer in a submarine that is his business as long as he trained hard & from what has been reported & from the improvements he has shown thus far he definitely did that. Just like I could care less about Harden partying it up at strip clubs as long as they spent several hours a day working on there craft/weaknesses I am cool & frankly you really shouldn't care either.

 

Roxxy laying the logic down like a champ.

 

Thanks for clearing that up!

 

I, too, wish he could use all summer months improving his skills. But everyone deserves a summer break, right? Especially his annual Taiwan tour is part for charity events. Plus I also read he still spent around 5 hours every day training during the tour. I wonder how many more hours could he add? Would more hours, say 7-8 hours training per day cost wear and tear on his joins, especially his knees?

 

Thank you for exposing the complete lack of logic displayed by Lin's detractors. Lin is definitely not the finished article, he is a developing young PG. And he has plenty of areas that he can improve in his game, like any other young player.

But what irritates me about the more intractable among his detractors (trolls) is that they don't seem to think context matters.

I'm not interested in talking about injuries because while he did look like he wasn't really fit at the beginning of the season, with some minutes under his belt I think he is getting back into solid game shape now.

But I don't see how anyone can watch the Rockets play, see the fact that Lin is being asked to camp in the corner and not really being allowed to handle the ball or indeed play as a point guard or the fact that the coaches have shown little interest in creating plays for him to utilise his strengths as a player, and still complain about his play in isolated snippets. (Of course the coaches foolhardy strategy has backfired massively and put unnecessary pressure on Harden and cost the Rockets at least one win if not more.)

To me, the only people who would do that are either not smart enough to see the obvious before their eyes because they are clueless about the basics of basketball or are simply trolls/haters. I cannot fathom why someone who claims to be a fan of the TEAM would want to hate on their starting point guard in such a blind and ignorant fashion, rather than recognising the potential that's clearly there and supporting their player to do better and help the team win more games.

But I suppose when someone with supposed pedigree, who is a professional coach like Sampson can pre-judge Lin so badly, where he prefers TONY DOUGLAS then how can we blame lay fans for adopting a similar attitude?

 

It's amazing to me that every time someone gets an unoriginal thought, they feel the need to start a thread and make us all dumber for having clicked on it.

 

So now Sampson joins the list of Lin haterzzzzz. Lmfao Lin fans are the best standup comedians of any fan base in sports.

 

LOL @ OP's username.

 

The problem with putting Lin in the corner is not just that he is reduced to being a spot up shooter, which is he not good at, especially while he is shooting poorly. The corner also restricts the space he needs to penetrate. If he drives from the corner, he can just get funneled down the baseline, which functions as a second defender -- in effect, Lin is double-teamed with just one defender on him. A good case scenario when he is funneled down the baseline is he kicks it out for a three -- and we've seen that a few times -- but you won't see Lin get to finish much from drives from that spot on the floor. If Lin is not getting to the free throw line from penetration, then he is not being used effectively.

High PnRs give Lin the chance to read the defense and the space to go either left or right off of the screen, whereas side PnRs are much more restrictive. Lin is literally not positioned correctly for both him and the team to succeed.

Harden is a top-tier player but he can't carry the team by himself. Putting Lin in the corner means that defenders don't have to play honest with Harden and can double team him easily, since a hockey pass or cross court pass is needed to get the ball to Lin. Putting Lin in the corner makes Harden less effective.

Lin needs to be at the top with Harden to have the space to work. I don't see why both Harden and Lin can't get screens set for them in the same possession. They have similar skill sets -- playmaking and good at PnR -- which the coaches need to find a way to be complementary instead of redundant.

Hollinger's prediction that Lin in Houston will be the 'real deal' is entirely predicated on Lin being positioned like last year's PGs -- getting high PnRs set for him.

Also, Mchale and Sampson have both stressed that they want the team to run and push the tempo. It seems to me Harden does not push the tempo as well as Lin when he handles the ball. Harden's domination of ball-handling is not consistent with the goal of being a fast paced team.