Nice post, sincerely and deeply hope you are right. But frankly, one thing that honestly made me lose faith in NBA management was seeing Lin get bounced around the league and repeatedly called "unathletic" by the experts. If they had just criticized his shooting or his dribbling, I would've been fine, but to see them stoop to all the racial stereotypes that flew in the face of even the scientific tests put me over the top. I knew he had potential and athleticism from the first time I saw him in college, but the experts all thought otherwise.
Watching your video, the one STRIKING difference is the amount of screens that were set..... What the Knicks did was very typical in NBA half-court sets. The Rockets' problem is the bigs don't set nearly enough screens. (And the few Asik does set aren't particularly good. This is the one hole in his game.) And this has had a negative effect on not only Lin's game, but the entire starting offense.
Lin is still recovering and still doesn't have the explosiveness he had last year. Last year we saw him be able to beat guys off the dribble, crossovers, splitting the defenses, step back jumper. Seems like he has almost no point guard moves this year.
Just stop okay. Back on topic, I think it's easy for us to blame the coaching staff on the whole situation sitting in front of the laptop, but it's a lot harder to consistently operate a PnR system from completely new players. I mean, people always bring up how effective Lin was in NY when given the ball, but you've gotta understand that team had an entire season drilling that system under D'antoni who is a master at making the best spacing and opportunities for the PnR. I'm pretty sure that's all they drill in practice, and players, even bench players know the system inside out. And then you look at the Rockets, Harden didn't even participate in camp with the Rockets. Delfino is new, Lin is new, Asik is new, they had no time other than game time to develop any sort of synergy. We really can't expect them to consistently run any kind of offensive set just because they had very little time practicing and drilling plays together. A PnR system isn't just a two men game, you need the entire team to rotate and space properly for it to work. I'm pretty sure if you just give the ball to Lin now and make him run PnR on every play from now on, it will still fail miserably just because the team hasn't had the time to really develope the right synergy together. this part of the season is really a trial and error season where they are forced to try out different things with different players. Since there isn't really that much time for practice they have to use game time to test out things. I'm sure the Lin not getting involved thing is just one of those things they are trying temporarily.
Did you see the one "screen" that Patterson tried setting for Lin today? Lin had to call for it repeatedly, Patterson came over, and then started to skip towards the lane several feet (I believe) BEFORE Lin's defender even made contact with him (Patterson). And it's not like Patterson left because his defender over-helped or anything; when Patterson started skipping towards the basket, his defender was between him and the basket. One of the weakest/worst "screens" I have seen, and that includes playground games.
That is my issue with Patrick he takes shortcuts. That type of attitude bothers me. And I also don't like that the coaching staff isn't holding Harden accountable on his defense. There are times that Harden doesn't even try. If you look at Hardens passing stats namely his assits leading to baskets at different locations his numbers are identical to Lin's but he has the significantly higher USG. His overall AR is half of Lin's with about twice as much USG.
Think the mods should change the title of the thread to "All Lin discussion here" and sticky it. Some good discussion here and it seems to work at containing Lin threads. Just the title is very negative towards a Rockets player.
I've reported the thread. Not sure if the mods will do something with it. For those who also think the title is inappropriate, please report it...or at least change the f**king title.
"I believe in Jeremy Lin!" <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/4KO7w_CCgmg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> skip to 2:23
I hate the title, but for the most part, free speech prevails in the BBS, and we just have to grin and bare poor taste. Does say something about the OP.
he is terrible, the others teams are letting him drive to the basket because he cant finish, he will drive and just dribble inside the paint a couple times and go back to the perimeter, back to square one.
Lin is young in that his NBA career didn't really start until Feb of 2012, regardless of his age or when he turned pro. He has bounced around from team to team, from NBA to D-League, never being in a system or anything.
