There's the problem, "a few". Some of the posters here are still totally incapable of allowing Lin to accept any blame at all for his bad games; and they throw coaches, teammates, even Houston fans under the bus. (That cuts both ways). It's tough to not become defensive. It becomes "us vs them", and the less biased people in the middle end up having to defend their lesser of two evils. In summary... we are having withdrawal from 2012 elections
Those people were idiots. I don't dispute that. To be frank people were blaming Harden & I thought that was ridiculous too. But the people who were letting the opinions of random Lin trolls (most were likely trolls) on the internet affect them that much are silly as well. But this is sport & that is what being a fan is. Emotion over reason after all. Anyway, thanks for the conversation it was lively & informative. Happy holidays.
Just because Sampson didn't succeed in destroying Lin's confidence doesn't mean that the coach didn't take actions which could have done so.
Would durvasa or apollo say that Gasol sucks and is choosing not to post up and play aggressive when the coach puts him on the perimeter?? You betcha. It's Gasol's fault for being on the perimeter although the coach is pointing at an X on his clipboard and telling Pau, "Here, that's you on the perimeter." They would want Gasol to jump in there and attack even though the whole team is moving and screening for Howard/Bynum and go commando. Gasol can be awesome in the right offense. However, with Bynum and now Howard, it may be too late. And many of the less than intelligent fans think it's Pau being weak. The parallels between the hate on Gasol for being weak when he has not been put in the right position to do so resonates. And btw, I'm a big Gasol fan.
<a href="http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showpost.php?p=7466813&postcount=1411">Arthurprescott2</a> has already destroyed your sly attempt to cut Lin down. I think I have you figured out now. A few weeks ago you tried applying a hacksaw to Yao's reputation. It didn't work, as too many people here remember the big guy. And now you are going after Lin repeatedly. You will of course attempt to say that it's just a coincidence that both your targets are Chinese, but I doubt that very many people will believe you.
Here's my stance for the record (not that anyone cares..lol): 1. Lin played terribly in the preseason, barring a few flashes here and there. He looked slower than he does now. His shots both inside and out were off. Whether it was cuz he couldn't play much ball off of rehab or his China tour, it doesn't matter. It was what it was. Totally understandable for Rockets vets to be disappointed, to criticize. 2. Then, Lin had a couple of decent games to start the season but when his confidence was fazed by just how off his shot became post-surgery in real game situations, Lin played awful. At that moment, were the coaching staff believers of Lin, they would have put their pg in position to regain confidence by calling plays for him or designing screens, high pnrs, things most everyone knew he could do well if they watched any film on Lin at all, as I'm sure the coaching staff must have done. Instead, they put him in the corner with the dunce cap on and sat him in the corner wondering what they were going to do with him and seeing each of his missed corner 3s as signs of failure. This clearly suggests to me that the coaching staff did not have faith in Lin and even when he was doing all the little things on defense, or rebounds, passing, etc. necessary for wins, they did not see it cuz all they were looking for was someone to bring the ball up court fast (which TD does EVERY possession whereas Lin does when it matters) and make spot-up corner 3s. I will bet dollars to donuts that Sampson thought TD was much much better than Lin on defense and probably even on offense. (There's no other logical conclusion you can draw from the benching of Lin in the 4th quarter in multiple close games other than they were very low on Lin) Probably even to this day. I'd bet that Sampson is surprised that Lin is doing well and expecting him to come down to earth to his correct level anytime now. I'll even bet Sampson still thinks Lin sucks on defense. (It's hard to admit you're wrong.) 3. And now. Lin went off on San Antonio, Les went off on Morey, Morey went off on McHale & Sampson, and more plays were called for Lin. More screens, and more pnrs. And here we are. I blame Lin for not taking the bull by the horns. I blame the coaching staff for keeping Lin away from any bulls or horns. But in the end, it's not all about Lin. It's about the Rockets, so all's good in H-Town.
As for Lin's potential, I've said before that he could be a second Jason Kidd. And I am stading by that: he's still tracking Kidd's career. When you adjust Lin's per-36-minute numbers this year by usage rate, they are almost identical to Kidd's second season. If you think that Lin's year only really started four games ago in New York, when the coaches finally began allowing him to be the PG, you don't even have to adjust. In those four games, he has been averaging 19.3 points and 9.3 assists per 36 minutes, which is actually better than Kidd's second-season 16.0 and 9.3 (again, per 36 minutes).
Please don't punish Lin when he does something like this: 29:01 Minutes 2-8 FGs 0-2 3PTs 3-4 FTs -4 +/- 1 Reb 1 Assist 1 Steal 7 Pts That stat is from Dragic's most recent game.
This was the Clippers game against CP3. Understandable the Clippers are a amazing team right now. I fully expect Lin to put up poor numbers against the Clippers when we play them.
Because the coaches had orders from above to emphasize Harden at every other player's expense? Now that Harden is feeling the overuse (he's icing BOTH of his knees) the same coaches are forced to let Lin play PG.
Now that Lin has put together quite a few strong games, playing aggressive, obviously looking faster/healthier than at year-start and shooting/finishing-at-rim better, some of the posters resort to blaming Lin for not playing with aggression and not 'embracing' the traditional PG role before. They are basically saying Lin wanted to dribble the ball up court and go stand at the corner 3pt line. Ridiculous. Just go look at the first two game of the season and look at how Lin played. He might not have got his speed/finishing etc back, but did he hand off the ball to Harden every trip down the floor to stand at the corner waiting for a spot-up 3? No, and not by a long shot. It was only after the first two games and the Rockets had some time off for the coaches to implement some plays that Lin started playing this way. If you guys have ever followed Lin's career or looked back at his games, you'd know Lin doesn't play passive naturally. He's very aggressive, never backs down. You guys are just clutching at straws. While some of the fans go overboard with the coaches conspiring against Lin crap, many of us simple asserted they should let Lin play his natural playmaking PG role (and run a few PnRs for him) and both Lin and Harden (and the Rockets) will be better off for it. That is clearly what's happened in the best stretch of Rockets play for the year (and possibly since the end of Yao/T-Mac, taking into consideration opponent quality and win margin).
That's because we do very little cutting. If we did more of that, Lin's resemblence to Kidd will be overwhelming. Remember his feed to a cutting Greg Smith in the Memphis game? And all those passes to Landry Fields during Linsanity? That's what I mean.
Since I'm tired of these player comparisons: Jeremy Lin is that one player that doesn't really have a contemporary PG comparison. IF he was more scoring-minded then I can see a Tony Parker comparison, but even then Lin would be a larger, slower, and stronger version of Parker. If he were a better shooter and a better passer then you could argue that he has some Nash in him. If he were an elite decision-maker then I can see the Kidd comparison. But Lin is a unique player who is not exceptional at one certain thing, but average to quite good at everything. Compounded by his race, this is why I think Lin went undrafted - you can make an easy living out of being exceptional at defense or offense [see Tony Allen or Kevin Martin] but it's much harder when you're average at many things. The human mind favors one exceptional statistic far more than it does multiple average ones. If Lin woke up tomorrow and decided to become a scoring PG like his natural abilities suggest, I have no doubt in my mind he can get 20+ points, easy. But that's not what he wants - and this apparent contradiction is what makes him such an interesting player to follow. I find it especially notable that Lin during multiple interviews as a Knicks and Rockets player said that his mentality on offense is to "take what the defense gives him". I find a lot of truth in that because it's quite apparent in his game. With most NBA point guards to that to some extent, you usually can say, "Oh, X player looks to pass first, and Y player looks to shoot". With Lin, it's a little more difficult. For example, if you can picture Lin's transition game over the past 15 or so games you can see the relative balance between scoring and dishing in his game. There are times when you see him with 1 or 2 trailing players and he simply takes it up strong and finishes. Other times, he's wide, wide open but chooses to give it to a big or a wing player. In his PnR game, it's the same thing. When he sees a big approaching him as he drives, he looks to pass to the big man. When he comes off a screen going baseline and sees the corner 3 open, he always passes to that spot. If he sees a defender going under the screen, he usually takes the jumper - I say usually because the first 10 or 15 games his confidence was so low he didn't take the jumper even if his man sagged. His entire game is based off what the defense gives him. It's not about mentality - it's so rare to find a reactionary player in the NBA. I believe the ability to read and react is what defines the point guard position. In fact, if we're to rank players based on how well they read the defense, it might go something like this: 1. Chris Paul 2. Steve Nash 3. Rajon Rondo 4. Utah Jazz Deron Williams ... X. Russell Westbrook This is why many agree that CP3 is the best PG in this league - he has no weaknesses. He's a great shooter, a great passer, and also reads the defense well (and gets a lot of steals, but that's another conversation entirely). Of course, that's not their actual rankings - Steve Nash is on a new team, while Rondo has been with the Celtics for years, Westbrook makes up for his poor decision-making in other areas, and Deron Williams played much better with the Jazz. But if you look at only their ability to read defenses, I think it's quite a telltale sign that the same players who have high bball iq are labelled as top PGs. Westbrook is an anomaly; his amazing athletic ability and shooting ability covers up for what many perceive to be a lack of IQ. The fact that many believe OKC will never win a championship with Westbrook because he doesn't make the right decisions goes to show how important reading and reacting is to the PG position. Back to Lin. He's currently floating somewhere in the middle echelon of point guards in this league. I see this as further proof that he's quite possibly the most balanced, average PG in the NBA. A poor, poor version of CP3, if you will. Style aside, like CP3, Lin comes as close as you possibly can to a player who is evenly balanced in his abilities to score and shoot the ball. Too often I see comments after every game he has a great assist night: oh, he's the next Rajon Rondo, the next Steve Nash. Every game he notches 20+ points he's the next Tony Parker. But he's neither of those players, really. His current problem is that sometimes he tries to shoot too much, and other times he tries to pass too much. Additionally, he doesn't shoot that well. In a perfect world he would know when to pass and when to shoot (and when he shoots he would make them often), but as a young player he still oversteps his boundaries multiple times a game. It's quite painful, actually, to see him be aggressive when he should be the facilitator and not the shooter , drive and miss the ball (badly), and have the other team score an easy transition bucket on the other end. I swear this happens at least once a game. As he improves he's going to get better at knowing when to pass and when to shoot. His potential will be determined by a number of factors - bball intelligence (reading the defense), shooting better, making better decisions. As he gets to know his teammates better and generally gains more experience in the NBA, he'll start to make the right decision nearly all of the time - that's where I think he has a chance to really make an impact in the NBA. He can be one of the best decision-makers in the league as he matures. As a point guard, I think this skill is one of the most underrated and separates the average from the good, and the good from the great. Unfortunately this skill is also one that can't be as easily improved on as, say, shooting. Luckily for the Rockets the league seems to be high on Lin's bball iq. tldr; This idea that Jeremy Lin has to be forced into a certain style of play or is going to be the next great X player is silly. He's a unique player and we should be fortunate a reactionary player is playing for the Rockets. Especially since he's been playing rather well recently
Well, I sort of agree in the sense that Lin will take what's available: he's good at passing or driving, and not so good as yet at spot up shooting. However, you have to remember that this describes the young Jason Kidd to a T. Yes, even the passing: you have to compare Lin to a young Kidd, not the overwhelmingly more experienced player we see now.
