Here's to hoping for another stellar 10 games from HOU's PG. Man, I feel bad for Lowry. I always liked him. What is Toronto thinking though? Jose is on his way out, he's not resigning with them. Why not build for the future with Lowry and the other guys?!
I wouldn't call that stellar for Lin; that's assuming he usually plays below what he's put out the last 10. Now that he seems recovered, I hope he takes the next step and becomes more consistent. If he ends the season averaging 13/6 a game I would be satisfied but a little disappointed, 15/7 I would be ecstatic.
I just had a look at the PER calculation and find the following: Once uPER is calculated, it must be adjusted for team pace and normalized to the league to become PER: \ PER = [uPER*(lgPace/tmPace)] * (15/lguPER) This final step takes away the advantage held by players whose teams play a fastbreak style (and therefore have more possessions and more opportunities to do things on offense), and then sets the league average to 15.00. ------------------------------ Which can explain why all our starters except Harden have a PER below 15 and tbh Harden should have a slightly higher PER as well, something close to Kobe's PER - like 25 instead of the 23.4 he's getting (Kobe 25.67). As a reference here's our starters' PER: Harden 23.43 Parsons 14.85 Lin 14.69 Pat 14.57 Asik 14.4 (Morris 13.92) And again for your reference, 4 out of 5 PHX starters have a PER above 16, so is PHX a better team than us now? especially Gortat who has a PER of 17, is he that much better than Asik?
question for fantasy basketball guys: I just saw on the espn player rater that in the last 7 games (the first tab up top) that Lin was ranked 1st among all pgs, and for all positions sits behind Lebron (#1) Harden (#2) Durant (#3) Lin (#4). Even with his horrible start he's tied for 6th among pgs. What does that exactly mean? Thanks in advance. http://games.espn.go.com/fba/playerr...otCategoryId=0
Click on last 15 games and Lin is ranked 7th overall. Not bad. http://games.espn.go.com/fba/playerrater?&splitTypeId=2
LOF's think he's a 20-10 guy and better than James Harden (and possibly Chris Paul) LOH's would like to him to put 5-2 and be worse than Moochie Norris And Rockets fans would be ecstatic with a 15-7 guy with his defensive intensity.
If you round up to whole #'s, his last 13 games avg out to 15-7. I think it'll be easier for him to avg 15pts than 7 assists, because Harden get's his share of asts and Asik and the other bigs dont really play above the rim for easy lobs.
Averaging 15/7 would give him very similar numbers to Dragic. However keep in mind Dragic is playing on a much slower paced team. On the other hand Lin is a marginally better defender, is a few years younger and has 1 year less on his deal.
There are 51 games left. If he plays all 51 games, Lin would need to average 16.75/7.4 to achieve 15/7.
And Dragic is the head of the dragon on that team with the highest usage rate, whereas Lin is 2nd dog on the offensive assault in Houston. He was 3rd, 4th, and even 5th for a while with more plays called for PPat than Lin!! I wonder if Chandler's recent struggles have to do with the fact that the offense has shifted more toward Lin than him. I hope they figure it out soon.
You can balance pace with usage. Dragic is not playing significantly better than Lin this season. Just marginally. Lowry is losing his starting job to someone on an expiring contract that the team got him to replace. If Lin can improve his 3-pt shot to 35%, he's better than both. No more 'hell no' to the Lin-Lowry comparisons.
Lowry's not even playing badly, in fact, he's playing pretty well. They're just a bunch of idiots who don't know what fool's gold is.
They're not idiots. Calderon is a better PG than Lowly is. This is proven by the Raptors winning more games when Calderon starts over Lowly. Lowly is a better scorer, but not a better PG.
PER accounts for pace, Dragic over the course of the season has played more than "marginally" better than Lin, but the gap is shrinking and by the end of the year could only be marginal. Lin has been up and down so it is difficult to assume his play will be consistent. As for Lowery, his biggest issue is injuries. When he is healthy, he is substantially better than Dragic or Lin. Talent eventually wins out, Lowery will regain his job or be dealt. A point guard with a PER of over 20 the last 2 years won't be on the pine forever. Having said that, I don't think Lin should be compared to Lowry. The Rockets turned Lowry into an elite player in Harden. I do not have any issues with the Rockets decision to sign Lin over Dragic based on Lin's deal being a year shorter and being 2-3 years younger than Dragic.
The fact that the Raptors lost a number of close games early and Bargs is not playing has nothing to do with the Raptors turn around?
Suns can keep Dragic. He stunk up that previously .500 Suns team into the 2nd worst team in the WC. Nash isn't a better scorer than Dragic, but at least he could run the team. And the Raptors can keep Lowly who got benched because his ballhogging was costing them games.
