Should Jeremy Lin be more involved in the Rocket's offense?

Good post. It was apparent to anyone who watched the games last year that Lin steadily improved and really came into his own after the new year. It's one of the reasons i'm so confident that this is the year Lin pushes himself into the top 15 point guards conversation.

I don't mind Lin being more involved with the offense. He seems to make pretty good decisions (all in all). I definitely like him handling the ball more than Harden. Hoping to see him play more of a traditional PG role this year, especially now that we have a dominant low-post scoring threat.

 

I'm not sure Lin deserves a greater/lesser role in the offense, I'm fine with whatever makes the team more efficient. What I would like to see is this novelty concept of deferring the ball to the hot hand or someone who is not having an off night shooting! Often times you see a player (usually a star) continue jacking up bricks while the other players are discarded as an afterthought! The only time this should be allowed is in a horrible offensive team that doesn't have many weapons, which clearly isn't the case with the Rockets.

(P.S) I expect Lin's turnovers to go down and his FG% to go up, but I really can't see his scoring going higher, with the addition of Howard there are too many mouths to feed.
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He has to be relegated to the Ginobili role.

If the great Manu can do it for the betterment of the team, then who is Lin to have a problem to it?

Parker/Ginibili is Harden/Lin, 2 ball dominant guards working best when alternating court time, and sparingly at the same damn time.

Only way Lins' value is maximized and only way Lin should be on this team.

 

Do the Rockets actually need Lin to score more next season? Absolutely not. The Rockets were second in offense last season in the NBA, and with Howard who, if healthy, will be an offensive force next season. With Howard I actually expect Lin's scoring average to drop somewhat. If his TS% goes up somewhat next season it would be a plus, but even that is not a requirement for Lin to have a successful season.

To me, if Lin bumps his assists per game by three to 9 apg and drops his turnover rate by one per game - to below two turn overs per game - he would have a marvelous season. But can Lin actually accomplish those goals? I believe he certainly could. And the reason is Howard. I know I am overestimating, but is seemed like last season there was a bumbled interior pass to Asik almost every game. With Howard on the floor that problem will pretty much be erased. And over next season I could see Howard being assisted twice or so a game by Lin. Howard has a huge target box above the rim for lob passes. But as always my crystal ball is cloudy, so we will have to wait and see.

 

IMHO, bev should start and play majority of his mins with harden on the floor..

and lin should be used as the primary ball handler for the majority of his mins.. 6th man role, still getting 30+ mins a night

does anyone have effectiveness ratings for beverley with harden? without?

lin, with and without?

 

Lin knows his role and he's smart on when to take a shot. It depends on who the opponents are and how they defend Lin. More shots just means he's more effective and there is more chance for him to create for the team, this is probably when the opposing team is defending Harden heavy and giving Lin more space. It actually helps to prove Lin and Harden can play together.

 

No

No he doesn't have to score more but just more efficiently. If he has been working on his skills he should be able to do that. Instead of being ranked 35 out of 50 PG's he kicks that down to top 20 or flirts with top 10 would be great.

His one area he does excel in is his assists and if he were to increase that then I will say he is successful. 9 APG though is lofty though. Get that and I will say bravo. I will be happy just to see a slight tick up.

 

It's not how many points Lin scores that measures how well he is doing.

It's 3 things:

1. true shooting percentage - which will benefit most by uping his 3 point shooting
2. Improve his Assist to turnover ratio.
3. Getting the ball up the court better (faster) against pressure defense

I don't care if he scores 5 points or 25 points. It all depends on the defense and what they are giving him.

 

Lol

Exactly. Thanks for getting 'it'.

 

Good points. I am of the opinion that last season when Lin and Harden penetrated the center just automatically picked up the penetration and depended on weak side help to switch to Asik. In the normal Rockets offensive set the weak side help had to come up behind Asik. That really is not going to work well against Howard. We will have to see how the opposition handles the penetration next season. Has Howard ever played with a penetrating guard who dishes dimes as well as Lin and Harden?

[EDIT] The best guard Howard played with was Jameer Nelson (Kobe doesn't pass so Kobe is not considered). Nelson is not a guard that can dribble penetrate when it is not part of a pick and roll. Nelson averages right at 30% of his shots closer than 8 feet from the basket. Both Lin and Harden are above 50%.

 

Superstars or not, we can't have any Luther Heads once we show up for the playoffs. It's nice to feel like a contender again where we want to make sure that our team is well-rounded.

 

Yes

Yes with Howard the efficiency should shoot way up for everyone. Also the times everyone complains about Lin picking up his dribble and looking lost was due to other players not playing 'off' the ball. This year that should be cut way down.

Also our strong side got a lot stronger and the weak side had a slight uptick. To make it simple we have gotten a lot more weapons than just Howard.

 

I did want to bring up one other thing that I saw about Lin playing last year that I liked and could be huge for the team. About the last third of the year I noticed Lin starting to draw fouls at a good clip.The only other person on the team capable of doing this last year was Harden so it heartened me to see this. I did also notice that Lins ability seemed to be during the 2nd quarter and some in the third and then stop. I am hoping this continues and maybe even throughout a game. This is game changing stuff and I will give a pat on the back to any that understand why.

Now Harden is the best at this but most don't know it but Howard is maybe the 2nd best at this NBA wide. That is right we now have the 2 best foul getters in the NBA on our team. (Makes no difference if Howard is good at shooting them itis still an astounding stat.)

Now if Lin can develop this more also and we end up having 3 good to great foul getters we could be looking at a very high seed. Not only that but it will also make Lins efficiency rating look really good. This is huge and I am hoping to see more.

 

What kind of question is that, of course he should and will be involved in our offense.

 

He will be involved. Increase or decrease in his value this year is heavily predicated on his ability to upgrade his three.

 

I'm not really seeing it. On that data-set of 14 shots or more, the correlation between FGA and FG% is 19.8%. The correlation of the 2 on the whole year's gamelog is 16.6%. You can put them on a scatter plot and see his 3 highest volume games were at good percentages, but after that it runs the gamut. Of his >50% shooting days, most are in the 10-15 FGA range (he averages 11). You can fit a trend line that slopes a little up, but it has an R-squared of 0.03. So, essentially I'm not really seeing his performance as a shooter improving with volume.

 

Nope. Jeremy has to learn spot up 3's. That's whats he gonna be used for, even more so now that we have Howard, who thrives on 3 point shooters, (see Orlando).

As far as who handles the ball, McHale isn't changing priorities, regardless of how much Harden is run into the ground. Harden will always be the main ball handler, Lin will always be the secondary ball handler, then Parsons third. Harden has never played off the ball and I don't see him changing anytime soon. You can't put lipstick on a pig.

 

there are plenty of balls to be shared, none of the sticky icky and everyone shall be happy.

 

sHOULD HAVE COMPARED GAMES WHERE CHALMERS TOOK 14 OR MORE SHOTS IN ORDER TO COMPARE THE TWO. YOU TOOK ALL GAMES IN WHICH HE HAD A HIGH PPG. YOU ARE COMPARING APPLES WITH ORANGES. CHALMERS TOOK MUCH LESS THAN 14 SHOTS A GAME IN THE SAMPLE YOU PRESENT.

 

iT IS IMPROPER TO RUN A CORRELATION COEFFICIENT WITH VALUES THAT ARE LACK SUFFICIENT RANGE. THE R SQUARED WILL BE VERY SMALL . BASIC STAT. ALL OF HIS GAMES MUST BE USED, NOT JUST A DATA SET THAT INCLUDES 14 OR MORE SHOTS.