It points to a limitation in morey's personnel assessments. He's very good to great in assessing and acquiring player talent, but distinctly average in assessing coaches. I believe, and this is admittedly heavily speculative, that morey is too analytical for his own good. Morey is too much like a computer. He can crunch and analyze numbers, but he's deaf, dumb and blind to human and emotional intangibles such as how coaches interact with players on a human level. How do players react when publicly chided as sampson has already become infamous for? How do players react emotionally when forced to do something against their nature? Morey, who seems to be like a biological computer, more than a fully formed emotional, empathetic human being, can't properly assess mentorship and leadership. Get Jerry West in here.
so what if he's a system PG? who cares? they won and they beat a lot of good teams, too.....Nash won a lot of games, sure he didn't win the big one, but he did get a chance to go all the way.... at this rate, we ain't going to even get to a playoff to get that chance.
Actually Morey said he hired McHale for his leadership abilities, and surrounded him with specialists. I don't think he's dissatisfied with the results, either. The only people upset right now, are those trying to pass off Lin's poor play on to someone else. They're not gonna revamp the coaching staff for the youngest team in the NBA, who are currently predicted to win just 35 games, because they are 4-4. It's actually a very good start, with guys like Asik, and Morris developing. Harden getting a chance to be a star. Lin i struggling, but they're not going to give up on him after 8 games. However they're also not going to change coaches and hope that it turns things around for him.
It's not about changing the coaches to turn things around. It's about not marginalising him on the offensive end which is what the current staff have done.
All players are system players. ALL teams run various offenses, IE, systems. The Triangle is a system. The MDA offense is a system. The McHale offense is a system. The Princeton Offense is a system. Kelvin Sampson had a system. So does every other coach in the league. Certain player's strengths play to certain types of playsets. If your system relies heavily on low pace, half-court Post up play, then you'll do ALOT better if you're a back to the basket post up player than if you're a fast transition player. If you're a spot up shooter, then you'll do better in an offense with alot of ball movement and kick outs. If you're an off the dribble player, then you'll do better in systems that encourage individual ball handling. People toss around terms like "system" players as a way to discredit a player's skills, but it's nonsensical. It's like criticising a Sniper for performing poorly when you put them in a Heavy Armor tank unit. Each player benefits or suffers when placed in a system and under a coach that maximizes or minimizes their strengths or weaknesses. Good players will always adjust to some degree, but their efficiency will drop or climb depending on how well those systems play to their strengths, and how well the coaches integrate their abilities into the roles demanded of them. Just more stuff to think about.
Lin himself is not being aggressive. I don't know why. Maybe it's his injury or maybe his confidence is shaken. Douglas drives, Parsons drives, Morris isos. I doubt they have any more freedom than Lin does. He just seems tentative. He's not just deferring to Harden; he's deferring to everyone. He passes at the first opportunity, regardless of what kind of shot it creates. He's not active on offense, he essentially just gets out of the way. Even Douglas doesn't do that. Therefore there is no way that is on the coaching staff. He actually drove a couple times yesterday. I doubt the coaching staff was upset by it; its more likely they were encouraging him to continue doing it.
JLin is a mentally tough player. But every player has his limits. And Lin has reached his. Sampson is sending out 'low confidence in my PG' vibes by: 1. public criticism. Instead of talking to lin one on one, sampson just sh#ts on him in public. 2. an offense predicated on emphasizing lin's weaknesses and negating his strengths I'm sure there are other factors as well that we're not privy to; all we know right now is that sampson/mchale are either too stupid to construct an offense to optimize player's strengths, or too dogmatic, or both. Either way, we have young, bright talent which is heavily under-utilized. Being satisfied with a .500 record is a recipe for ongoing mediocrity.
It's not just about setting screens, but the screener also being able to read the defense. One thing the Knicks bigs did extremely well was knowing when to slip the screen early and go towards the basket. I don't think I've seen a single screen setter on the Rockets slip a screen early. Because of this, teams are being aggressive defending the pick and roll making it harder for whoever the ballhandler is to make the right play. However, the team is young and learning all the nuances of the pick and roll is something that will come with time.
Say what you will about Sampson, but he keeps playing Lin and he's on the floor to close out every game. And he's said that they will develop more plays for Lin soon. My guess is that their highest priority right now is Asik and Harden because you need to take advantage of your 7-footer and your Olympian all-star. Unfortunately, that means that Jeremy Lin needs to wait in the wings for a while, but he's the undisputed starter, so he just needs to bide his time and do this thing.
I'm not about to construct a kelvin sampson as racial profiler conspiracy theory. The simplest explanation is that sampson is dumb and inflexible and imposes a cookie cutter system that doesn't work for this group of players. That includes harden, parsons and asik, as well as lin.
You're clearly more concerned about how Lin looks, versus the progress of the Rockets. The bolded is ridiculous position to take considering the Rockets current situation. What you want out of a young team is improvement. They are getting that from Asik, Morris, Harden, and Parsons. They've all broken career highs in various categories in just the first 8 games. They've all bounced back from poor performances with great games. Harden started the season with a couple of amazing games, and then struggled for some games before bouncing back recently. He had a great game yesterday, despite missing some threes. Asik is ANCHORING our defense. On offense, he had a 0 point game one night but then followed it up with a 20 point game soon after. Morris had a terrible first game, yet now he's playing amazing on both ends of the floor. Parsons just broke his career high, despite struggling earlier in the season. He was a starter most of the way last season, so the career high is a result of him improving and not just getting more opportunity. Even Douglas has improved. Lin is struggling. That's on him. He has improved defensively. So there's that. I don't think Morey is dissatisfied at all. He is not going to change coaches or trade Harden for Landry Fields for the benefit of Lin. He's just gonna hope, like everyone else on the Rockets, that Lin improves. It's only been 8 games. Despite what you're projecting on Sampson, I bet Lin doesn't feel the same way. Sampson is really direct. You can see that by what he said about Patterson, and others.
Hey don't get me wrong. I totally agree with you. But I think really Lin doesn't have a choice. I don't think the current staff is " brave" enough to take ball out of lharden's hands and make Jeremy the primary ballhandler. I think at this level, in order to "survive" this year, he will need to be a better spot up shooter and make his shots. I am optimistic that Jeremy will eventually find his shot as I don't believe his this bad of a shooter and maybe as his confidence grows, he will take a more assertive role in this offense. The season is still early..we have a long way to go.
Larry brown doesn't regard Lin highly . He actually agreed with Knicks letting Lin go. Lin would be in the dog house with LB if he was the coach for the rod right now.
