I believe that this is only looking at one side of the equation. I don't think you will get arguments that there will be some drop off on the first unit if Lin is not in there. The other equation is that Lin makes the second team so much better that any drop off from the first can be replaced and even add more value to the team as a whole. If the 1st team gets a value of -1 without Lin but the second team gets a +2 if he is leading them, then the net result is more favorable or positive for the whole team. At the moment, there is really no way to tell if any of those predictions are true but the only way we can find out is to test it during pre season
That is right on what it comes down too. If he can be more efficient that is all we want. If he can improve his pick and roll D and look to score more.
Remember the state of the board when Sampson was put in for McHale and Jeremy Lin had less playing time. I was generally confused at the reactions by the LOF's. I've never seen so much nonsense about conspiracy theories, racism being thrown around on a basketball bbs
Couldn't agree more. I think there is value to starting a pg who is not as much flashy and athletic, but more adept at controlling the ball, starting the offense, and knocking down a wide open shot. IMO Beverley fits this mold perfectly. (i.e. mario chalmers miami heat) On the other hand... Flash and athleticism should be embodied by the first man off the bench. This should be a guy who can put most, if not all, of his focus on scoring, and try to pick up the reserves while the starters get a rest. I am not saying that Jeremy Lin is perfect for this roll, however, I think he is more suited for it than the starting PG on THIS SPECIFIC TEAM. This dynamic does vary from team to team, but as someone who has watched all of the pre-season so far, it is seeming like his more natural fit.
The 6th man is key. And to be honest, the best looking scoring 6th man on the team right now appears to be Casspi. So if Patrick Beverley is able to facilitate as he did in Taiwan off the bench and can feed Casspi and Garcia, we would appear to have a very powerful bench. Patrick did a great job of this yesterday. All 5 of his assists were to bench players (3 to Garcia, 2 to DMo). Awesome. So if Beverley is ready to make plays with guys and set up scorers off of the bench, guys like a Casspi who could be our 6th man, then we should be all set. I don't think anyone would seriously say that a contending team doesn't need some bench help (although Miami might argue about the need for a 6th Man). What is not clear in the discussion is that it is Jeremy Lin who needs to be that 6th Man.
Everyone should want Lin to do well because he is a Rocket. Everyone should want Bev to do well because he is a Rocket. Because at the end of the day, if they play better, the team will have more overall success.
Grouping a set of fans together does a disservice to everyone. There are Lin fans who were already fans of the Rockets. Lin fans who became fans of the Rockets. Lin fans who are fans of basketball in general. Lin fans who are not large fans of basketball in general. The same applies to fans who dislike Lin. One thing I do notice is that tempers run very high on this board when it comes to Lin. I think that lots of people have become oversensitive to the discussion in both directions. Part of this is that there is still some polarized opinions of Lin himself, part of it is there is a level of frustration with the hyperbole that takes place on the board, and part of it is I think there's impassioned people that think they're absolutely right and won't brook the possibility of there being rational human beings with an actual difference in opinion. An example of how Hyperbole runs quickly out of control was a single post I made noting that I believed McHale made a marketing/PR error in not starting Lin in Manila that quickly escalated into a fairly lengthy debate that followed some very strange roads indeed. I was somewhat astonished at the line of disagreement that began as.. "There was no marketing/PR controversy", then quickly went down the rabbit hole to "It's not McHale that made the controversy", to "The Asia Trip isn't about PR/Marketing!", to "It's not McHale's job to do PR", to "You're just trying to bash on McHale!", to "You're clearly just a LOF and want to prop up Lin at the expense of the team!". All that from what seemed to me to be a fairly innocuous comment noting what I felt was an obvious to foresee PR/Marketing blunder that could easily have been averted with minimal/no down side. This type of thread escalation and entrenchment of positions seems to spill over into many other threads, where some individuals seem to stake out positions proclaiming one side or the other Lin haters/lovers in attempts to discredit the basketball opinions of the opposition. I personally am a fan of Lin. I'm also a fan of Morey. And a fan of Harden. I was a fan of all 3 LONG before I ever came to this board. I started an account after Lin joined because you can really only discuss Morey so much (it's not like he's making trades every day), and to be perfectly honest there are far more level headed statistics focused forums to express opinions and thoughts on the methods and moves that Morey makes. With the signing of Lin (and Harden), it seemed a no brainer to join this forum as there would be more than enough fodder to discuss on a semi-regular basis to make joining the forum worthwhile. Now am I a fan of the Rockets? Yes and No. I'm a fan of the Rockets as an organization and as a team, similar in the way that I'm a fan of the Spurs. I would by lying if I said I feel the same sort of unconditional attachment to the Rockets as a lifelong fan from Houston does. I didn't grow up in Houston, I haven't even been to Houston, and I don't see a trip to Houston being in the foreseeable future. The team that falls into that category for me would be the Knicks (which I followed since childhood). So am I a die hard, bleeding red Rockets fan? No. However, if that was the prerequisite for being a fan of a team the NBA would go broke (and this board would be a lot smaller and less interesting). I am however a fan of the Rockets in the sense that I'm heavily invested in them and follow them extremely closely. I am more than anything a fan of Basketball and the NBA. I love watching great basketball, great players, players with good stories and potential, and great basketball organizations (like the Rockets and the Spurs). And since the hiring of Morey this team has steadily moved towards becoming a great Basketball organization. Finally, I don't care whether Lin becomes the 6th man or not. My main concern is the correct usage of players on the team. I do see the argument for having him lead the 2nd unit, or barring that at *least* having Harden on the floor when Lin is not and vice versa. I do think Lin should start, but that's a personal preference in terms of how you should start a game. I personally believe it's best to start your strongest offensive unit and run up the lead (as well as get your offense in rhythm) vs putting in a defensive player unless the opposing team's offense is so good that they'll run up the score on you. While Lin isn't the on-ball defender that Beverley is, the actual number of PG's that will scorch Lin but would not scorch Beverley is actually a really, really short list, and most of them are NOT on contending teams. For example, Lin can't contain Tony Parker, but neither can Beverley. Lin has done historically well against Derrick Rose so trading off his offense for Beverley doesn't make a lot of sense. CP3 torches everyone whether it's Lin or Beverley at the point. So as you tick off the number of high level PG's that Lin can't defend but Beverley can, you then are facing the 2nd question of how many times will that result in a Win vs a Loss? If you see where I'm going, the list gets pretty darn short, pretty darn fast. Another issue that people seem to gloss over is that Beverley's style of defense is NOT sustainable for long minutes. Beverley for all his gifts isn't Andre Iguodala. Beverley doesn't have tremendous length or size. His defense is drawn primarily from his lateral speed. This type of defense is very energy consuming. Can he do that for 15 or 20 minutes? Sure. Can he do that for 82 games playing 25-30 minutes per game? Doubtful. Based on what I've seen so far, it makes the most sense for me to start Lin, then manage his minutes with the 2nd unit and starters so the team gets the most bang for it's buck. As for finishing games, I think that should 100% be score and opposition dependent. If the opposing team has a very guard oriented offense and it's one of those PG's that Beverley can defend effectively (like a Jrue Holiday), then closing with Beverley makes sense. Similarly, if the opposing team has an exceptional perimeter defender they can put on Harden then Lin should be closing as a 2nd option for generating offense. Of course, if I had my way Harden would also be subbed out at the end of some games simply because his defense was sub-par last season (barring improvements this season). Will McHale be that cognizant of changing game dynamics to make those decisions correctly? I certainly hope so. However, his performance in that aspect last season certainly wasn't stellar in my view. He's not a bad coach, but he's not exactly Coach Popovich either. In the end I think it would be nice if some of the more extreme posters better differentiated between legitimate critiques of players, management and coaches from attacks on the "team". It is perfectly reasonable to like Harden, Dwight, Lin or any other players and still critique their errors and weaknesses. The same applies to McHale, Morey and co.
The key thing that grouping fans of Lin together (LOF) is that the simple label allows you to tar all the fans with the worst elements of the group. The same can be said for the LOH label. It is a tactic used regularly to dismiss any opinion on Lin, positive or negative.
I got, idk what the word is, not attacked but accused of being a LOF by a senior poster just because of my join date, despite lukring since 09, I actually joined to defend Daryl Morey because I just got tired of reading some of the crap being spewed about how his time was up, couldn't build a roster, lets tank etc. When I pointed him in the direction of a Scola highlights video I made like 4 years (my favourite player during those years) ago it didn't even register and he/she continued to say I was fanboying. It goes both ways, obviously there are alot more crazy/irrational fans of Lin, but people still lose their freaking heads from time to time. Okay done venting
People are so sensitive to Lin a small compliments to Lin = LOF and small critique on Lin = LOH. WTH?
I did. And I also see the state of the board when someone who has been a member of this forum long before Lin even entered the NBA gets called a LOF because they feel that something should be done in Lin's favor & bickering ensues. Or when somebody who is a LOF makes a entirely valid point with facts to back up his opinion gets disregarded because of his join date. That happens a lot. Neither is constructive. Which is kind of my point. But anyway this is a public forum and you are going to have tons of personalities so you have to learn to embrace it all which is obviously what I personally need to work on. Thankfully it seems like the admin staff does a good job of sanctioning the extreme haters as well as the extreme fans.
Response You make too much sense for people to agree. It seems to me that as long as others' positions are within reason, some respect should be given. It's like an argument by and between Christians and Muslims. Anyway, I get that CL site is for "Rockets" fans who put the interest of Rockets first, so I am all for the administrator of the CL site to create a single thread on Lin if there is such a need. Anyway, Hakeem the Dream was my favorite Houston player because simply put, he was a center who was a ballerina on court. Seems like a nice, smart guy also.
Lin is the most polarizing player in the league (which is surprising because he hasn't done anything controversial, and there's no good reason to dislike him). It's entirely between the fans who have discussions which escalate. No other fan base has this degree of division.
There are some Lin fans that are great. In the beginning I felt that Lin was overpaid and under qualified and they were like hey wait a minute, here are the other PG's starting around the league and here are their salaries. I looked at that and was like "Well heck! You guys are right. He is not overpaid at least not by that much in terms of salary cap space nor is he woefully underperforming either. Part of my initial bias/perception was due to us having Lowry and Dragic, both of who I consider better than Lin and had friendly contracts and have been spoiled by them. There are good Lin fans out there who are knowledgeable about basketball and view Lin in a rational and non-psychotic manner. It is the Lin ONLY fans that annoy the living hell out of me personally.
Did you see how the rest of the thread went? There was some guy named HotRocks34 who came in later and responded to that poster. I think I know that guy, HotRocks34. The poster you cited is an excellent poster. But he's not a Rockets fan, to my knowledge, and he's not watching the Rockets games, I don't believe. Stats are good. Stats and context, better.
I have no problem with giving it chance in preseason that's reasonable. From the small sample size so far I think the team looked better as a whole when Lin started.
Every popular player (e.g., LBJ, Kobe etc) has fans who only follow them, and Lin is no exception. Remember, this is the internet. People are going to say whatever they want. It doesn't mean you have to engage every single person you think is wrong. Things are even more ridiculous because people are taking personal offense over things they have no control over. At the end of the day none of this matters, it's purely discussion, and that's all it is.
While I agree it is discussion, it is also r****ded discussion. The only reason I would want to see Lin traded barring getting a superstar back is see his worshipers pack up and leave.
The other thing that bothers me is that Lin is not a good player and he has fans like a superstar would. It boggles my mind sometimes. YOF's I can understand. Yao was a beast. Same with T-Mac, LBJ, and Kobe. Lin is NOT good or at least not nearly good enough to warrant so many fans. IMO, Lin is like Tebow without the complete suckage and a better underdog story. I just don't understand the rabid fascination and can't stand his groupies at all.
