[ClutchFans] Jeremy Lin after playing just 18 minutes vs. Mavericks

I think Harden is the most popular player by far.

 

Nice post. Agree on almost all except that TD is a better man defender. I will say that TD is a different type of defender, and he can spell Lin on defense by hounding the opposing PG with his energy. Even the best defender can't defend all 48 minutes going all out.

 

How about if the offense is about ball movement and screens like San Antonio. Getting everyone involved wins games. Trying to run an offense for 1 person no matter how good is a recipe for failure.

 

I re-watched the first 6 minutes of the game, Lin did set up Asik nicely for a few times which didn't end up in points. I also noticed that Lin passed the ball to Harden only 1-2 times at most during that time span. Maybe he was supposed to give the ball to Harden more often rather than trying to set up his other teammates who were in a better position to score but unable to finish. No democratic ball.

 

I think we all get your point, and all of your posts frankly are true. It's frustrating for all of us when the Rockets lose and players' abilities are not maximized. The coaches made their decisions, and I think many of us disagree.

 

+1. You articulate it so much better than I did. LOL. :grin:

 

So if you're open and you're not Harden you should pass the ball to Harden who's covered? If you do that people will stop moving and not even try to get open - waste of energy. Watch the game tonight and see how San Antonio plays. By the way I don't remember Parker shooting many 3's to "space" the floor.

 

I meant if you're Lin and you see an open man you should pass to Harden who's not open?

 

Harden is the best player on our team. No doubt. But building a team around one player is basically playing Melo ball. The team will win a lot of games if this player is hot but everything will fall apart if the player is injured or going into a slump. Most importantly, the game will be very boring to watch unless you are a big fan of that particular player. I really hope that it's not the direction of where the Rockets are going.

 

Don't you get it? In the first 6 minutes, it was all Lin trying to run the offense and get everybody involved. When everybody was bricking their shots (Lin only took and made his only shot + 1/2 free throws) and they were down 11 points, it wasn't working so they changed it up and went to Harden.

It wasn't Lin's fault nobody was making their shots but when they decided to go exclusively to Harden to get back into the game, Douglas was more useful in that situation because he spreads the court more for Harden and Harden was going to be the primary play maker with the ball in his hands anyways.

 

Building a team around a player is not playing Melo ball....

Teams always build around their best players. OKC was built around Durant, Spurs around Duncan, Dallas around Dirk.

Melo ball is a type of offense that involves a player who provides nothing on offense but scoring, and not always at an efficient rate either. Harden is nothing like Melo.

 

I don't think you understand that you will not build a championship team relying only on 1 player. If this is a building year then build a TEAM the right way.

 

What probably happened was the coaches (and Morey) telling Les that Flynn is either as good as Lin or almost as good, so no need to go out "on a limb" and keep Lin over Flynn's guaranteed contract. Remember that there were plenty of people on CF that had Flynn rated above Lin; I remember one comment saying that Flynn was far better in every area and had much more upside (of course many did think otherwise, like me).

 

This is the only reasonable/rational explanation for what happened. Lucky we have rocket scientists as coaches. They are lucky it even worked in the second quarter, as Harden got hot and Mayo cooled off/got rested. Of course it was fools gold in the end as it in no way worked in the 4th quarter, and the staff was too befuddled to try something different even though Dallas had clearly adjusted (and that was not rocket science).

 

Ball movement requires quick decisions before the defense rotates or sets. When the ball swings to Lin, he needs to stop being indecisive with it. No jab stepping, pump faking, drive-stop-in-the-lane-pickup-dribble-then-look-to-pass action. Just take the wide open shot, swing the ball, or drive.

Right now, Lin kills ball movement when he hesitates, giving the defense time to recover. I got tired of listening to Sean Elliot go on and on about it during the Spurs game. But Elliot is right in his observation. In the end, I think the hesitation is likely to get Lin benched, especially when he can't hit an open shot to save his life.

Too often, defenses are just giving him the open shot and defending the drive and/or the swing pass or just waiting to see what he does before committing. That has little to do with Harden. Lin needs to make the defense pay just as Delfino, Parsons, and even TD have.

 

Rockets had 3 PGs under contract, so why would they bring Jeremy Lin, another PG, to training camp if they thought Flynn was "either as good as Lin or almost as good"?

The Rockets were originally going to send Dragic and Scola to the Lakers for Pau Gasol, which would have freed up room for Lin. When the trade got veto'd, Morey's plan had to change. We now have 3 PGs under contract, two of them are extremely good. We didn't need Lin anymore, even though we tried to keep him.

So I'm going to say, that I'm pretty sure the Rockets saw something in Lin and he was part of our plan. What wasn't part of our plan was a trade being vetoed.

 

Not sure. I noticed that Lin always takes an outside shot very early in the game (almost as a test to see if he's got his shooting touch back). If he hits that shot, he tends to take more throughout the game. If he doesn't, he seems to pass more. (Caveat: No stats to back me up here; just my totally untrained eye test, lol.)

Sometimes I wish Lin would just do what Felton did in that Chicago game (i.e. I don't care if my shots are not falling; I'm still gonna take 30 shots.) and shoot his way out of his slump. But I guess he's too unselfish of a guy to do that.

 

I think you are right.
I guess I just didn't want all other players to be treated as role players.... (My Dad and I are big fans of Asik).

 

I agree with you. I thought this was the Rockets tried to do initially. What Les was so angry about when he tweeted Morey during Linsanity though was Morey's failure to adjust when the trade didn't work out. They didn't take a good/accurate look at Lin when he was in their hands, and simply dumped him. If they thought Lin was good, they could have gone back and tried to make either another trade, keep Lin as a SG/4th PG, just pay Flynn, or do something else. You don't just dump a starting quality player who is making the minimum. This eerily reminds me of our coaching staff's inability to make adjustments during the game.

 

I think I may have seen most stupid poster here.

I didn't say Lin is the best player on the team. Everybody knows Harden is the best player on this team. I said "most popular". Do you not know the meaning of "popular"?

From wiktionary, 'popular' : Liked by many people; generally pleasing, widely admired. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/popular

The shear number of Lin fans is far more than Hardens fans, that is just an indisputable fact. I don't have to give you the evidence on that, do I?

By the way, who the hell are you to judge I'm the LOF? Have you read all my comments on this forum to make such conclusion? Get off that high horse already.