I'm sure Harden himself would rather be getting easy buckets via backdoor passes from Lin, rather than having to chuck up fadeaways against the opponent's best defender and ruin his FG%. Just hoping that this is just the coaches working out their nascent offensive schemes.
What I don't understand is: OK, Harden is your max player, of course he should be "the man." And they're concentrating so much on Asik's development as an offensive player. He misses layup after layup, and that's all just part of his development. (Not criticizing him, btw, I really like Asik.) But Lin? Hardly any attempts, then OK, try the gamewinner while you're completely cold. WTFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
Dude, they gave him a couple of minutes and he hit the side of the backboard on a shot. After that he hasn't been seen on the floor.
I think one could make the argument that they're trying to develop Lin's shooting range, but that's a very tenuous one at best.
Finally, a rational post with no knee-jerk reaction like a moron. Yes, it's pretty sad watching BOTH Jeremy and James being misused. Just because James is a smart passing shooting guard does not mean he should run the offense time and time again. I legit think having him act like a PG is what caused him to lose the momentum of the shooting streak he had going. It all coincidentally started in game 3. It's also upsetting to watching the coaches stubbornly turn Jeremy into Derek Fisher, bring up the ball, pass it to Harden and go be forgotten in the corner. He is not being used efficiently and sadly the people hating on him actually believe it's all his own doing Coaches have literally taken away EVERYTHING he was great at, being an aggressive PG that ran the offense.
The only guy who drible drives is Harden which is odd because Lin is good at that & yet haven't seen anything. The Rockets would be so much better off starting with a screen for Lin and having him hit the roll man or swing to Harden but that doesn't happen enough.
I think it's more likely that they're trying to maximize Harden's minutes playing PG as we don't really have an effective back up PG. TD still has a LONG way to go. So, if you plan on rotating Harden and Lin as PG's, and Harden has missed the training camp, then you probably want as many reps as possible so he can become familiar with the players and the sets. We're actually seeing alot of new stuff being trotted out every game in terms of the offense.
You're right on this. And it is a huge part of the problem. Asik is getting these looks and players are coming off of him and letting him go for the shot but he is not finishing at the rim. This basically forces our players to run more isos than we need to.
I really appreciate your posts, man. I guess I'll start to panic when you do. But this is demoralizing stuff for fans of Lin and Harden. Those first two games had my hopes up. That backcourt was looking awesome. Don't understand why they changed it, unless they realized it couldn't be the Harden/Lin show for 40+ minutes a night and they had to do something more. This "more" though is awful right now.
Okay, that makes a lot of sense. I think the Rockets realize that they don't have a deep bench, so they're trying to make everyone as versatile as possible. Obviously, the coaches and management aren't blind and they saw what the Harden-Lin backcourt could do in the first couple of games. They have WAY more on the line than us forum-dwellers, so they can't be sabotaging themselves out of some weird misplaced worship of James Harden.
I am 100% in agreement. I can't think of an nba player who was as under-utilized as Lin is now. And unfortunately, I cannot agree that we have to assume that Mchale and sampson are competent. In fact, the evidence suggests otherwise. Meaning, sampson and mchale have made not one, but several statements which clearly imply that they (they, meaning sampson in particular) don't think lin can get the job done. 1. Sampson has stated: “You don’t want James Harden in a democratic offense,” Sampson said. “He has to learn to play in the flow, but shooting is not an equal-opportunity proposition. If you’re on a team [and] your best player is not getting the most shots, there’s probably an issue.” 2. Sampson has also stated that he prefers douglas (at times, an obligatory qualification) to lin. These types of statements point to one conclusion: sampson in particular does not hold lin in high regard, preferring harden (makes sense) and douglas (shooting 11%?), which doesn't make sense. Obviously, sampson had the ear of mchale and now holds the reins to the offense as the acting head coach. I can't see this situation ending well for lin. And the rockets will suffer as well, as long as sampson is a part of the coaching staff.
I wouldn't call it awful. Think of it as unfinished. Our offense was tonight was light years ahead of the Memphis game, which was WAY ahead of the Denver game. There is progress... but it's going to be a step back before they can take two steps forward. The first 2 games was Harden and Lin playing streetball. They were operating off sheer BBIQ and chemistry. Transitioning from that to structured offense means there is going to be learning curve. This means at least for the short term there's some drop off in efficiency at least as far as Harden and Lin are concerned. Think of it as being similar to changing your golf stroke. At first it's worse, then it improves, then you're better. Our offense is like that right now. We took a step back, this game we took a big stride forward, and once that's sorted out we'll hopefully see alot more of that Lin and Harden chemistry except with more offensive options available. It still doesn't fix the underlying structural problems (we need improved picks/screens and rolling bigs for PnR play, and we need better 3 point shooting), but it should be a step forward.
Lin cannot be shooting only 7 shots a night. It's that simple. He needs to take at least 15 shots, one way or another. He took fewer shots tonight than he did against Miami during linsanity....which is what I predicted prior to the game because he has been so passive and uninvolved in the offense. This was asked of McHale during the preseason, why Lin is not involved more. McFail says he already touches the ball on every play but giving up the ball to harden at the half court line and not seeing the ball again doesn't count. And if they want Lin to be a spot up shooter, why does it only have to be a 3? On his airball attempt, he had a lane to drive.
I think it's obvious that Harden should get the most shots on the team, and that the offense should be focused around him. But that doesn't automatically mean that you have to relegate Lin to an ineffective shooter role. I really don't care if Lin only scores about 10 pts a game, as long as he's running the offense and feeding Harden for easy shots. Lin, at this point in his career, shouldn't have to be any team's primary scorer. As for what Sampson said... I think he was trying to build Douglas up. The team DOES need a decent back-up PG.
That's the theory anyway. But there has to be a way of 'installing' or systematizing the 'streetball' that was not only ridiculously LINtertaining (just had to), but also very effective. I just don't see the point of having 4 players stand around doing nothing while harden holds the ball and lets the clock tick away. This isn't helping anyone. Let lin and harden create, with the rest of the guys cutting, and setting picks. This was famously effective for lin last season, and having two outstanding two way guards running a variation on this style of offense could be incredibly effective.
I would encourage anybody that is freaking out about Lin to take a step back and breathe. The difference I've seen between Lin and Dragic is that Lin has a winner's mentality and isn't afraid. I remember that Toronto game when he bossed up and just took that game winner. He is being used incorrectly right now and I think it is killing his vibe. I'd like to see the coach take the reigns off of him and let him dictate the offense more.
But he's also extremely efficient playing off of Parker and if he's having an off day, one of the Spurs guards will run the point and Pop will make adjustments accordingly. Harden can play effectively off of Westbrook and when he ran the point for OKC he was looking to play within the flow of the offense. Right now he's handling almost all of the point duties and he keeps searching for his own shot and/ or ISO'ing which he clearly is not very good at. McHale has made a system that wants to focus on playing through it's interior big man but our interior big man is a defensive specialist, not Scola or Gasol. He also wants to distribute ball-handling amongst the wings, but Delfino is a shooter and has been making some poor decisions and a lot of unnecessary dribbling is taking place as we keep doing these pointless hand-offs.
The fact of the matter is, the offensive coaching on this team is absolutely inept. That needs to be fixed first or harden and Lin will never develop improve.
