I've been saying this for a while now. The bad news is that I think he needs to alter his shot a lot to become more consistent. He uses to much legs in his shot which is why they go really long or short(air ball). The good news is I'm not a basketball coach, so my opinion isn't worth much in regards to shot mechanics.
Other than last game(3rd game in 4 nights) and a couple games when he's playing with ankle issue, Lin's shooting has been outstanding in 2013. Actually if he keeps up this shooting percentage the rest of his career the only thing he needs is a little better conditioning - even that maybe due to his recovery from injury and the lack of experience playing full season as starter. Basically he'll be automatically much better next season without much improvement.
In recent games, if I remember correctly, Lin was also on the bench when Harden was rested. May be the coaches have confident with P Bev running the point without Lin or Harden.
Nobody's hoping for that - my reply was to dispute trading Lin. If we trade him for another PG we have to get someone who will be ok with handing the ball to Harden and standing in the corner. I doubt many other PG's will put up with that. Mchale and the Rockets are very lucky that we have Jeremy who is willing to sacrifice his game for the good of the team. If we trade Lin and don't get a PG in return who is going to be our PG? Beverley is not looking to be the answer. Brooks can score but we need defense more than scoring and he's weak there. Neither of them can run the team if Harden gets injured. At least with Jeremy we have a chance at playing .500 ball without James. It would be tough though unless Anderson or Garcia step up.
We'd be f**ked if we traded JLin though. Think Dragic would hand the ball to Harden and stand in the corner? Think anyone else would?
Agreed. Probably have 5 less wins. More than that if McHale still wouldn't let Lin run the offense. There's a good chance of that so yeah maybe 20 wins.
We would not be "f**ked" if the Rockets traded Lin (not that I want him to be traded). And the answer is yes, a ton of PGs would be more than willing to let Harden run the offense and be the secondary ball handler.
Kyle Lowry has a lower usage rate than both Derozan and Gay, and he is far from a mediocre PG. Unless you are an elite PG you will not often get the ball more than an elite SG or SF. But you shouldn't call Jeremy Lin mediocre.
I'm not calling Lin mediocre wise-guy. He puts team first which is why he deals with the McHale BS and we're damn lucky to have him.
Good, then we all agree that a ton of good PGs are more than willing to be secondary ball handlers if they are playing next to elite playmakers, in this case Harden.
I think there are very few who would be happy with it. Besides Harden is far from an elite playmaker. He had 8 turnovers last game and his assist to turnover ration is lower than ANY PG in the league. This is a fact and you can try to spin it whichever way you like.
If you want to play that game, then James Harden is ranked 1st amongst all SGs in assists and also ranked 1st amongst all SGs in TS%. Thus he is good at creating shots for others and for himself, making him an elite playmaker. This is a fact and you can try to spin it whichever way you like. But this isn't about James Harden. This is about whether PGs would be willing to be secondary ball handlers if they played next to an elite ball handling SG or SF. The answer is yes, and you have no factual information to make the claim that most PGs would be unhappy about it.
Nor do you have any facts to claim they would be happy. Common sense however would say that with the massive egos most elite athletes have they would not be happy deferring to anybody. Especially someone who turns the ball over more than they do. The team has shown to play better when Harden and Parsons handle the ball less - that is another fact that multiple clutch fans have pointed out. A big part of the loss last game was due to turnovers that led directly to layups and Harden led the team in that category. I admit Lin had too many as well - but not as many as our "elite" playmaker.
I don't want to reiterate a repetitive argument but Lin just really needs to adapt to Harden, not the other way around. Harden is more of an offensive threat (while he needs to work out not turning the ball over as much when penetrating). If you look at the Lakers, Nash is playing off the ball more because right now the Lakers are winning with Kobe dominating the ball. Wade defers to Lebron (that's an obvious one). The only exception I see is Durant deferring to Westbrook which opens up Durant's offense. Durant is such a great shooter/player off the ball he doesn't need to ISO a lot. Harden gets alot of TOs because the defense focuses on him. He's avging 26/6/5 a game, so he's gonna be all over a team's scouting reports. Lin is up there in TOs and but his usage rate is alot less which doesn't amount to a very efficient offense. If Lin can play somewhat like George Hill (1.7 TPG and 2.85 AST/TO ratio), he'd be a great compliment to Harden.
