It's one thing to think that a player is not as good as advertised. It's totally another thing to actually become unhappy when that player does well. Coach Sampson seems to fall into the latter category. Whenever Lin plays well, he seems to get upset that his preconceived notions have been proven wrong, rather than being absolutely delighted that he actually has a PG that is better than he thought.
Torocan, just because there are off ball screens, does not mean they are set plays. Mchale runs a motion offense, which uses a lot of off ball movement, and really requires the players to think on thei toes and make decisions on the fly. There is going to be a lot of standing around the wings until this team builds chemistry. Once our motion offense is down, we won't have to worry about our ****ty coaching. I'd give it half a season to see if our players have the Bbiq to execute the offense.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Having Douglas in the game vs Lin on offense down the stretch was baffling.- Stotts also did a good job getting POR to foul up 3</p>— Haralabos Voulgaris (@haralabob) <a href="https://twitter.com/haralabob/status/269710809830146048" data-datetime="2012-11-17T07:57:22+00:00">November 17, 2012</a></blockquote> <script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> Voulgaris is a professional sports gambler who is friends with Bill Simmons. The guy actually has a 15-member team breaking down games to make his bets-- and actually makes money off of analyzing sports. Not that he's always right, but here's a guy who did some homework and is probably fairly objective.
In terms of designing plays for Lin, I think it's purely a time function. Harden was signed 2 days before the beginning of the regular season. In other words, he missed training camp. Training camp is a big thing. Aside from the 7-9 pre-season games, there are several weeks where players are engaged in 2 practices per day. To learn an offensive set is actually time consuming, with multiple steps involved. 1) X's and O's. Coach draws up the basics of the play on a whiteboard/overhead. 2) Walk through. The player positions players on the floor, then walks them through the play. They do several dry runs at walk through speed so they can visualize the play. 3) Slow speed repetitions. Setting the team into scrimmages, they run through the play at reduced speed, correcting players after each run through as they make errors. 4) Full speed repetitions. Running the play at normal pace, then talking to individual players about errors/adjustments. 5) Live scrimmage. Attempt to run the play during an actual scrimmage so that players become accustomed to performing while under defensive pressure. 6) Live game. Attempt to run the play during game conditions. You have to do that with EVERY Offensive play and it takes ALOT of repetitions before those players become familiar enough with a play to run it in a live game. And this is just for one unit. This must be done for BOTH Units, and for 2nd units you are ALSO subbing players in/out so that they can Also learn the plays. Given the limited amount of practice time during the regular season, you have to make choices about which plays you want the team to learn first. As your #1 scoring option, your first priority is to make Harden more effective. So you start with basic picks and off ball movement (open team mates). Before you can implement proper PnR plays, you need to make sure you have the ability to spread the floor. There are only 4 ways to spread the paint. 1) Perimeter shooting. 3 point shooting forces defenders to close on the perimeter, thus spreading defenders out. 2) Inside presence. If you have an inside scoring presence like a post up player, this forces defenders to try to cover the inside AND the outside, creating momentary lapses in decision making. 3) Drive and Kicks. If you have multiple driving players, you can have them draw defenders to one side, opening up the weak side. 4) Stacking one side. Under the NBA rules, each defender must be covering an opposing player. So if 4 players stack onto one side, that leaves the ball handler isolated against a single defender with help defenders further away. So, what I think they've done is prioritized in terms of what they feel is most important... 1) Picks for Harden. 2) Strengthen Asik's offensive game (inside presence) 3) Add off the ball drive and kicks with other players (multiple drives and kicks during a single play by multiple players. 4) Tell players to shoot the 3 (spread the floor) With those in place, they then worked on PnR plays. You can't do them for everyone at once, so you do them for Harden first as he's your primary scorer. In a recent post-game (after NOH) interview Sampson said that he was planning to add PnR sets for Lin. In other words, he had NOT added them yet. Consider what this all means... the paint was packed (can't drive into it), they have minimal plays in the game, and you want to get Harden up to speed as quickly as possible. So, you work on Harden and Asik, you add some off the ball movement, get some plays where multiple players do drive and kicks, and tell everyone to shoot open 3's. Now, imagine you're Lin. What are you supposed to do while all this is happening? Yup, you guessed it. Pass the ball to Harden, spot up shoot from the corner, run around off the ball now and then, and occasionally do a Drive when the opportunity is there. And suddenly the games and Lin's play start to make alot more sense. As for sitting Lin during OT, that's just silly.
I seriously don't think Sampson was watching the same game as the rest of us. He thought TD was playing well. False. He thought Lin was a defensive liability at that point on Lillard. False. People need to really look at themselves in the mirror and admit the truth. Sampson has his biases against Lin... I'm sure he's very encouraging to him in practice, and he's even said some nice things about Lin on interviews, but it is these moments in critical situations that give you the true glimpse into the minds of these coaches... what they really think about Lin and his game... and it didn't matter that Lin was on the verge of a triple double! BTW, Sampson admitted that he didn't see much of Lin in NY. So as far as I'm concerned Sampson still thinks of Lin as the kid he cut last year. I bet Sampson looked at the stat sheet after the game and was surprised by Lin's contributions to the game. The press gave Sampson a free pass in the post-game... hard questions were not asked.
That's true, but I didn't want to get too far into the differences between planned offensive sets and mini-sets/movement within a general offense. Without having a TV and some game footage, it's kind of hard to explain... That said, there's not alot of either right now.
It seems to me that Toney Douglas is one of Sampson's "good old boys". Was Sampson a journeyman NBA PG too or something?
Man, Torocan, you are the man... makes so much sense. Still hate the coaching, but at least there is a rationale for things (minus the TD in OT of course). Every Clutchfan should send a $1 your way to read your posts.
it looked like in last night's game lin was really handling the ball and leading the plays more than previous games this season. do you think it was a result of new plays, more leeway given by sampson, or lin just asserting himself? if it's the latter would that have caused friction with sampson?
Blazers announcers kept saying Lillard can score on Lin and that Lin will try to go for a steal. It's just fresh in their mind after what happened last time they played the Blazers. I'm sure Sampson felt that way as well. As a coach, he should of had more trust in his starter though.
I saw more uptempo game by Lin last night... I wonder if his emphasizing running the ball last night was his way to AVOID running the coaches sets (which do not involve him)? Lin was pushing up the court even after Blazers scored. Is this Lin's passive (aggressive) aggressive way of defying the coaches? Is this what he was being chewed out for? And where are Lin's post-game comments? Haven't seen any? Did he avoid the media after the game? If Lin doesn't want to speak up about his benching in OT, his teammates need to, i.e. Harden.
I wonder what Sampson's reaction is going to be after what happened last night. He took a BIG gamble on TD and it really showed him in a very poor light. Maybe he'll got a call from Morey about it? Will be interesting to see how he responds after having to eat serious crow by putting his faith in Douglas. He comes across as a stubborn coach to me. It's going to take a long time for Lin to turn him around, if that's even possible. Lin makes one bad/questionable move and he's just WAITING to jump all over him. It's actually kind of pathetic.
Kelvin Sampson, Jeremy Lin, and the Warren Harding Error In Malcolm Galdwell’s book “Blink”, He spends a chapter discussing what he calls the “Warren Harding Error”. Warren Harding was America’s 29th President (1921-1923). He was elected because of his great looks (he looked presidential) and magnificent rumbling voice which somehow convinced the Americans people that he would be a good leader. Little did people know of his true incompetency for the post for which he was totally un-fit. It wasn’t until his death in 1923 (caused by stroke), that people found out all the corruption and marital scandals during his terms. Warren Harding is now voted as one of America’s worst president in history. Politicians, journalists,and the public were all convinced that Harding would make a great president because he looked and sounded presidential, yet they were basing their judgements not on substance, but the “eye test”. What we saw last night in the Rockets 117-119 loss to the Trailblazers, and really what we’ve seen all season from the Rockets coaching staff, is a “Warren Harding” type of error in judgement in terms of Jeremy lin’s ability to play point guard in the NBA on the offense and defensive side of the ball. The real glaring example of this was last night’s interesting decision by Kelvin Sampson to bench Lin in the overtime period in favor of Toney Douglas, because Sampson “thought it was a better defensive matchup”. But was it really? By the eye test, it appears that Toney was a bit quicker on the defensive end then Lin, especially laterally, which could be due to Lin’s recovering from Knee surgery, but interestingly enough, of Lilliard’s 28 pts scored in the game, 15 of them came against Lin, and the other 13 came against Douglas/Parson’s. So statistically, it was pretty even. But if you delve deeper into the stats this season, this is what you find (stats posted by torocan at clutchfans) Current Defensive Statistics from Synergy Sports, INCLUDING the Portland game... Points Per Possession Allowed Jeremy Lin - 0.71 (50th in the NBA of ALL positions) Toney Douglas - 0.87 (151st in the NBA of ALL positions) Opponent FG% Jeremy Lin - 34.4% Toney Douglas - 42.5% Opponent 3pt% Jeremy Lin - 33.3% Toney Douglas - 37.5% Overall Opponent %Score Jeremy Lin - 32.5% Toney Douglas - 38.2% So in reality, Lin has outplayed Douglas on the defensive side of the ball. And if that’s the case, how can Kelvin Sampson truly think otherwise? I believe that what we have here is the likelihood that Sampson is showing a SUBCONSCIOUS racial bias against Jeremy Lin. Am I saying that Sampson is a racist?? Not at all. What I am saying is that on some deep, possibly subconscious level Kelvin Sampson doesn’t think Jeremy Lin is as good as Toney Douglas because Jeremy is Asian, and Toney is African American. Preposterous you say!?! well let me point you to a test also highlighted in Gladwell’s book known as the Implicit Association Test (IAT). This test is basically a reflexive type word association test that reveals a person’s subconscious bias towards things, whether it be women in the workplace, or even race. Even though in today’s modern society we have managed to for the most part move beyond racism and racial prejudice, on a subconscious level, we still have a long way to go. Fully 80% of the IAT test takers show a racial bias towards whites (stronger positive association with whites) even though they will tell you truthfully that they aren’t racist. What’s even more shocking though is that around 50% of the blacks who take the same test also exhibit stronger positive associations with whites than with blacks. What we say we believe, and what we subconsciously believe can be two different things. Kelvin Sampson’s actions demonstrated what many of us have suspected for a while now, and it is that he on some level doesn’t think Lin is a good enough basketball player because Jeremy Lin is Asian. There can be no other plausible reason.
The Blazers announcer also said that they liked Lin's game. Please don't use homer announcers as evidence to prove a point.
was it you who brought up the larry smith reference in another post/thread? b/c smith keeping yao in the doghouse on the bench is about the closest thing i can recall to a rockets coach ever making such baffling substitutions with a player. i mean even if you aren't a avid lin fan like voulgaris, it's just non-sensical to bench a starter who had been playing well for a guy who was struggling mightily in douglas. and in the larger picture, lin is the future point guard of this team and developing him by letting him play in the clutch is a no-brainer. that is unless the coaching staff envisions douglas as this team's future
Lin is a 100% team player. It's part of why every coach who's ever worked with him loves him. Lin is not going to go against what the coach wants intentionally. If he's handling the ball more as the PG, it's because the Coach gave him the green light. And if he's dumping the ball to Harden, it's because that's what the coach wants to run.
