Its a two way street. Has McHale & co. put him in the best position to utilize his offensive assets on the court? Not 100% exactly or its obviously debatable. But, its not like Jeremy deserves 0% of the blame here for his scoring woes early in the season. This situation early has exposed some glaring holes in Lin's game that he is obviously now working on to become a more complete player. Its possible that playing a little more of a Rondo/Jason Kidd role might have actually helped him focus on his weaknesses like his outside shooting, reducing his turnovers, and highlighted his passing abilities. My point is, in the long run, everyone will have learned AND GOT BETTER from this experience. The Coaches, Jeremy, and the rest of the team. But the coaches are getting the finger pointed their way too much. The System Blame- In McHales system- The PG, and the SG are interchangeable in this offensive system. You pass the ball from side to side, and the pick setter moves from guard to guard. Very, Very basic offense. There you have various problems within the offense that should get better over time. Mostly the roller & the shooting. The roller who is Asik mostly is simply not being guarded, and his defender is coming out to double BOTH drivers. Harden has been able to score off the double because... well he's a top 5 scorer in the NBA. Lin, as great as he can be at times, isn't there yet all the time, and has struggled early on with his shot which would have helped the defense come out at him more, therefore opening up a driving lane to the rim. Long story short, I think credit is due for the Rockets coaching staff sticking to their gameplan instead of knee jerk game planning thrown together on the fly like the Lakers have done this year time and time again when they can't seem to figure out what kind of team they want to be. For Jeremy, in this system, if he continues to be aggressive, the system will take care of itself. He can help himself out by working on some of the holes in his game, but that's just going to come in time. If Jeremy continues to struggle, then coming off the bench is an option to give balance to the offense, but for right now they are in a unique situation to be patient, and see this thing through. Not too many other NBA teams, and COACHING STAFFS would be that patient.
I think you have to let them grow together. Eventually they'll be explosive together. I agree that there should be bench rotations with just Lin or harden alone though.
Talk about a very small data set. One third of those 106 minutes was a game harden didnt play and Lin scored 38 pts. Other than that one game the stats are nearly identical to his overall stats It might be interesting to have Lin play off the bench so he his fresh when harden takes a break or because a Martin type of sg rather than focal pt But the stats in the OP are not significant enough. I still want them both to start. If Westbrook can coexist with a ball dominating durant. So can harden and Lin. They can figure it out This is not a playoff year anyhow. Lets first experiment with them both as starters. That said, if we land a low post scorer. Then we might revisit Lin being the high energy scoring 6th man
It might maximize their abilities right now, but who cares if it does? We're not winning anything this season. To beat a dead horse, we are the youngest, least experienced team in the league. The time to worry about Lin off the bench is if and when it might help the Rockets contend.
my thoughts exactly. this is a time to experiment. this should be all about getting it right for next year.
No. For McHale and Sampson's offense, they expect the same 2-3 initiation set play all to Harden, sometimes to Parsons, and rarely to Lin, unless otherwise directed. They do not allow a free-style offense. As an example when Lin brings it up, he will not have a pick come to free him up, never, at least until yesterday. What usually happens is they pretend to have Lin run the play but actually he's out there by himself while the real pick frees Harden coming around the pick to get it from Lin. If there is no play that results right away from that, Harden proceeds to iso and shoot/dish. He can't just do whatever he wants, I know you may not have played organized basketball, but all the players on the court know what set they will run and when we see the game, it's obvious who the play is going to be set for. The only exceptions are when there's a fast break, a broken play, or when someone goes commando like Lin's sneak attack yesterday in the 3rd. In summary, I completely agree that Lin has to carry the burden of being aggressive every single game especially starting from go, however, the onus is equally if not more so on the coaching staff to help him be aggressive by not just tellin him to be aggressive but actually running screens and high pnrs for him and Harden all game long.
If you exclude the game without Harden, Lin is shooting 47.5% since the first Knicks game. His overall shooting is over 40% now, when it started in the low 30's.
To truly compete in the league right now, every team needs at least a one - two punch scheme so the defense can not hone in on one person. Having Lin come off the bench might help the team win a few games short term, but in the long term it will not go anywhere without another player developing.
Unless the Rockets can get a low-post threat, or grow one of their own, they cannot afford to sit Lin on the bench. They just don't have enough talent.
I thought about this Lin-off-the-bench scenario long time ago, and really glad someone else is thinking the same thing. But at the end of the day, you don't want our main offense become Harden ISO, because it will simplify our offense and make opponent easier to defense. I think both Lin and Harden is smart and willing players, they will work out this entangling situation. For it to work out, Lin has to fit in Harden's game by becoming a better shooter, and Harden has to fit in Lin's game by becoming a better off-the-ball player (both LeBron and Kobe becoming a better player when they learn how to play off-ball). The good thing is both players are young and we are not in a hurry like in the Yao-Tmac era, why not let them grow together and have the time to gain a tacit understanding with each other? Once they figure out how to co-exist with each other and coordinate how/when/where to take turns in attacks, we will truly have the best backcourt in NBA.
This is one of the better threads on this board. Lots of good arguments going back and forth without petty attacks (for the most part). My 2 cents: I know 22+ games may seem a lot to some people here. But it really isn't. Most of you know that Harden was added 3 days before the season started. Then we had the coaching change because of McHale's family tragedy. Oh and the Rockets are one of the youngest teams in the history of the league. The team is currently .500ish with a handful of tough luck losses that could've made them .650ish. There are a lot of good suggestions about what the team could/should do and I feel pretty confident that both the players and the coaching staff are aware of most of it (if not all of it). I see experimentation from game to game like, setting up more screens; PNR plays by Harden, by Jeremy, and by Parsons; mixing in TD in the 4th; playing TD, Lin, and Harden, etc. My point is that they team is trying different things and evaluating the level of success - at least that's why I see. As others have said, patience is the key. I know it's hard to do as some take these games a little too seriously (and rant about it a little too much), but I'm completely OK if the Roxs lose all their games this year if it meant that they figured out stuff for next year (not to mention get a great lottery pick). During this experiment process you're going to get great games by Jeremy, by Harden, by Asik, by the coaches and you're also going to get awful games from them too. Don't get too high when the team does well. Don't get too low when they don't.
This kid can't "go to his left", and he's pretty damn good <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/R0kEyJ-tToo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
I dunno, Lin seems to have played well w. Harden in a few games. Just gotta wait and see I suppose. Classify this thread with the fire McFail thread.
Lin should get the ball 100% of the time as PG unless defenses are drawn to him. Do you guys see how Asik is so effective on offense? We are too critical of him, we have Westbrook, who sometimes shoot 1 for 10, or Harden 3 for 15, yet we still think Lin should be a backup because he shot 3 for 10. Rockets should just keep Lin and Harden as starter unless the team fails miserably like the Wizards and somewhat the Bobcats, or Raptors. We are not as stupid as the Raptors, not respecting Calderon, I hope we are not too stupid to play Lin as SG and as a backup.
