Rockets fans who hate Lin don't have to hate on Lin that much longer. He'll be traded before the end of this year. So, guys. Give Lin some slack for now because he'll be gone anyway. Just tolerate Lin for two more months.
Harden is so insecure he wouldn't even let Lin have the limelight in his parent's country homecoming game. He was on pace to score at least 25 points which he could have got easily if his teammates (mostly Harden) would have taken a backseat like they should have. That is obviously what the crowd wanted to see & I'm sure Jeremy would have liked to put up those kind of numbers.
But people in Taiwan love Lin and the whole feeling is like in home. It's good for Rockets team. Why not?
Good move by McHale. He knows what he's doing. And yet again I see a post where I can't tell if it's serious or a joke.
It is in that same interview where he says he tells Lin to hit singles. He was short and pithy with his comments rather than extended and nuanced. I think it was basically a variation on the theme of getting points in the flow of the offense rather than taking a high risk/high reward action... let things flow and a good shot will develop. When the offense isn't working, Lin's tendency is to short circuit it with high risk/high reward play, and that isn't what McHale wanted. This might relate to him being pulled even when he was doing well (because high risk/high reward can work really well).
It's preseason and they are still working on things. For instance, in the 3rd quarter, all the Rockets did was feed Howard in the post. In the first quarter, they were feeding Lin. In fact, the first 3 Lin scored was a designed play for Lin.
With Kevin McHale as a coach, Jeremy Lin started all 82 regular season games last season, and averaged 32.2 minutes per game. Evidentally, whatever "bias" McHale has against either his playing style, his personality or his ethnic background wasn't all that strong. When a coach doesn't think a player is good, he doesn't just sit him for some 4th quarters here and there, he glue the guy's ass to the bench as permanently as he can and demand that he gets shipped out. And it doesn't matter what contract the guy just signed. Remember when Stromile Swift was the Rockets' prized free agent signing?
It's really frustrating to see how some people will find any reason to complain about the coach or other players in the team. It does not matter if Lin plays 48 minutes a game and score all the points as that will still receive some crticism. Somehow, the only thing that matters is for a team to cater to what the Lin fans wants :-(
Tbh, I actually thought Harden should have let Jeremy have the last play before half time and I'm probably the last person who'd get called a LOF.
Gah. Please don't group the playing style argument in with the other two. They are slimy arguments, and I don't have a particular desire to feel slimy. And yes, talent trumps everything. I am not using the word bias in a pejorative sense. Every coach has a bias in the way they want to see the game played. If you take a defensive minded coach and hand him two players, one slightly better on defense and one slightly better on offense, he's going to pick the defense guy. You take the same coach and hand him prime Steve Nash, and he'll pick Nash and figure out the defense later. For Beverley and Lin, the talent level seems similar enough that preference for one style of play over another peeks through. It is not wrong, it just is
I think the main issues McHale has with Jeremy is inconsistency and turnovers. I wouldn't call that a bias. Any coach would be concerned with that. If its a "bias", its a bias pretty much every coach has. And with all that said, Lin is still probably going to start because of all the good things he does.
Inconsistency and turnovers are exactly what you get with high risk/high reward plays. Call Jeremy Lin the three point shot of point guards, and Beverley the post play of point guards. Either one can work to win games, it just depends on how good they are at it and how it works in the context of the whole scheme.
And to be clear, I would say yes you can be biased against that style of play, just as there was a long span where coaches were biased against the three point shot. It doesn't mean McHale is a meanie, evil, stupid, or anything. And it really depends on the overall rate at which Lin "hits the shot". And thankyou for drawing the "Lin is the 3 point shot of point guards" out of me. I like that analogy for him.
