Returning to your "marketing" talk of yesterday, can you explain how targeting Jeremy specifically to frustrate the fans is good marketing? You're going to say "The Pacers are supposed to win--that's their marketing--and the Rockets are not necessarily supposed to win, only to play J-Lin to the max," right? Are the refs in on this marketing scheme too? Or is just McHale the key to the NBA's whole marketing scheme in Asia?
It's good marketing to put Lin on the floor for the Rockets and the NBA in general. It's good marketing for the Pacers to limit Lin, but not so good marketing for the NBA to have Lin's effectiveness reduced. The difference is the interests of the Rockets align with the NBA in regards to Lin, but do not align and are actually opposing in the case of the Pacers. It's a rather obvious marketing analysis. Pacers become more prominent in Asia, Rockets and Lin become less prominent. Win/lose for the Pacers and NBA. Or Rockets become even more prominent in Asia AND Lin remains prominent. Win/win for the Rockets and NBA. I'm sure if it was 100% in David Stern's hands, Lin would become the next Kobe. However, Stern does not control the individual teams, the owners do and at a more microscopic level, the individual coaches. The difference between Yesterday and Today is that McHale made himself a point of discussion/controversy, enough that he got grilled by Journalists for hours as soon as he landed in Taipei. If Lin had started in Manila and bombed nobody would be focussing on McHale, they would be focussing on Lin and the Team's performance. McHale made a cardinal marketing error in Manila in creating a situation that detracted from the attention on the players and the game and instead having it focus on himself. Vogel on the other hand has in fact generated more short term attention on the players and the teams in the game. If Lin does well his star rises in Asia. If Lin does poorly the Pacers star rises in Asia. I would love to get into a lengthy discussion regarding optics and perception and it's impact on basketball and player decisions, but it seems that it would take a lot more than a handful of posts to fully explore the complexities of the relationship between competing interests in professional sports.
He said he would limit Jeremy Lin, because he was specifically asked about Jeremy Lin. You don't think the Pacers would try to limit Chandler Parsons? Or anyone else on the Rocket's roster? That's completely different to putting a target on Lin's back or trying to "lock down" Lin. They aren't revolving their defensive gameplan around Lin. I'm not putting Lin down or anything, but this is just making something out of nothing.
Who said they were revolving their defense entirely around Jeremy Lin? What I said was... If Vogel intends to take the crowd out of the game then they'll be looking to contain the team AND limit Lin simultaneously (not mutually exclusive). In other words, given Lin's popularity in Taiwan the Rockets could be 25 points down with Harden, Parsons and Dwight completely shut down and Lin by himself would be enough to get the crowd back into the game. If part of Vogel's game plan is to actually take the crowd out of the game (we don't actually know how much he cares about it, ie, whether he's just stroking the media or genuinely wants to take the crowd out) then you have to severely limit Lin AND contain the bulk of the Rockets offense. That doesn't make Lin the only target, but it does make him a target. This is different than nother games. In a typical game you could take Harden out of the equation and leave Lin single covered and the crowd would essentially be mostly out of the mix. On Lin's home court, I think you'll need to do both. Of course, none of us knows how much Vogel actually cares, on the other hand if you're an experienced Pacers team that just took Miami to 7 games in the ECF and you're distant "also rans" in the media to a team that didn't even get out of the first round of the Western play offs, I can see how that might get under the skins of more than a few Pacers players.
Contrary to your beliefs, part of McHale's job is marketing. It's why he's *required* to give press interviews. It's why he's *required* to attend charity pressers and do team events whether he likes them or not. He might not like doing marketing, or want to think about it, but it doesn't change the fact that it's one of the facets of his job as a HC in a professional sports league. Not starting Lin the day before they fly to Taipei on an Asian tour isn't going to get him fired, but it certainly isn't an example of savvy PR for a guy that worked both as a NBA commentator and GM.
If a coach says they aim to "lock down" a player, I'm pretty sure he is implying a huge chunk of his defensive scheme is targeted at that player. Bottomline is, this is a sensationalizing title and topic.
Can't wait to see the Lin to Howard to Lin party this could create. JLin goes off on Pacers.....next !
also...great job pacers getting this PRE_SEASON game up there in views and hits. They are stilll also rans in the East, and everybody knows it. Lookin for luv probably...lol
Wow, then Morey and Les Alexander really blew it by forgetting to remind McHale of the most important point of the trip: Jeremy.
I congratulate McHale for having his priorities as a coach set straight. I could not care less about how PR savvy he is, so long as he gets his players to buy in and play at a high level. Was Popovich PR savvy when he benched his starters in that game against Miami? No. Did that lessen my opinion of him as a coach? Not one bit. I understand that fans who care more about promotion of specific players will have a different perspective, but its not McHale's job to worry about that.
Despite your attempt at sarcasm, yes Jeremy was an important part of the trip. Particularly in Taiwan, but also in general. If Jeremy played on the Knicks, odds are pretty decent the Knicks would be the ones on this trip in place of the Pacers. "Really blew it" would be excessive, but the first few questions to Jeremy and McHale were specificially about his decision.
Please, let's not compare the decisions of a multiple Championship winning Coach playing a game during the regular season in the middle of a 4 in 5 and a stiff play off race and an aging roster with a statistically meaningless pre-season roster decision. While both had marketing aspects Pops decision had far more competitive implications than Manila did. And Pops still got fined $250k by Stern for the decision. It was a decision that had no basketball value, but marketing downside. A perfect example of no upside, all downside when it comes to decision making.
Let my sarcasm attempts continue: Oh, well if some people asked the first few questions to McHale, they obviously reflected the priorities of the Rockets organization.
Which proves you are a fan of the Rockets and want the team to do well. Jeremy Lin starting on the asia trip is a "basketball reasons" style of decision. But the NBA is indeed in a business, so that's going to happen on occasion.
Are you expecting McHale to be fined by Stern? Or to receive a tongue lashing from Alexander for violating the prime directive? The decision had basketball value. You are just not interested in basketball. Your posts are about Jeremy or money.
The Rockets organization has more than one priority. If you speak to the basketball operations side, they won't always give the same answer as the marketing side. The whole thing boils down to the fact that it would have been trivial to start Lin, pull him after a few minutes, and then let him play with the bench. If marketing people had been involved, they would have been jumping up and down saying "yes, yes, do it that way". In the grand scheme of things it is obviously not a huge deal.
