Either start Lin, or bring in a new starting PG, Bev ain't cuttin' it.

im not saying lin and harden can't work together. they can work together well. i think it would add more because i think it would give lin more opportunities to be a score first guard and have constant paint penetration all game.

i think it is an offensive advantage to have lin play both roles. yes, you can stagger the minutes with lin starting, but you get a bit more when he comes in the middle of the 1st.

 

If Lin is guaranteed to avg 33-34 mpg it doesn't matter if he starts or comes off the bench. The problem is as Old Man Rock explained, McHale

Originally Posted by Old Man Rock View Post
It's a big deal because Mchale's history is Lin gets less minutes when he doesn't start. If Bev is playing okay McHale takes minutes away from Lin. Lin is by far the better player why would you want Bev to take his minutes.
This a league of talent and rhythm. Your best players on the floor give you best chance to win. The more time you stick with your best players the more likely they are to trust you and get in their groove.

Of course if they continue to fail than you bring in someone else and give them a try. But that's not the case here. Bev never beat Lin out, there was no reason to hand the starting position over to Bev. This balancing the lineup with Harden is a bunch of bullshiit. You play the game to win and you do that with your best players. If you want balance you need Lin out there to balance off TJones who can't hit a midrange shot much less a three.

Bev is a great option to have off the bench but he is not a playmaker and hands those duties off to Harden mostly. But Lin is better at it than Harden. It just makes sense to take some of those duties away from Harden and hand them over to someone who is better at it than him. We need him to be the 4th quarter scorer and play defense for some of the game. That can't happen with Bev playing most of the minutes.

 

lin doesn't have score first guard abilities?

 

well mchale needs to change.

 

He doesn't want to be a score first PG. Even during Linsanity when he was breaking NBA records and on the cover of SI, he kept talking about feeding Tyson Chandler the ball in the paint, Getting Steve Novak the open 3 pointer look, and getting his buddy Landry Fields the ball.

Lin wants to be like Steve Nash. Sure Nash can score in his prime but he wasn't shoot first.

 

Not wanting to jump into this Lin argument, but I feel that this point has to be clarified: McHale for all his accomplishments, skills and coaching abilities, is probably the last person you want as your primary evaluation of talent.

Just look at his mangled track record as GM for the Wolves.

 

I doubt anyone would have a problem with Lin coming off the bench if he was guaranteed to avg 33 mpg for the season.

I for one wouldn't. I don't care if Bev plays his 15 minutes either as a starter or coming off the bench.

The key is Lin avgs 33 mpg and Bev 15 mpg maybe a few more min when Lin plays sg to give Harden a breather.

 

McHale also wanted to cut Lin when he was making the rookie min. That mistake cost the Rockets millions. Cut Lin when he makes the rookie min only to sign him in the offseason to a 8 million/yr contract

 

We all know that both Harden and Lin need the ball in their hand to be effective. But the arrangement, Lin never get the ball. When Harden was in the game, Harden has the ball. When Beverley was in the game, Beverley has the ball, which make no sense because Beverley has 0 offensive ability. The only reason why I am seeing that is because Lin is not part of Rocket futures.

 

Barring games affected by injury/recovery, Lin's averaging 32.6 minutes a game. He's had only 2 games under 25 minutes played - against the Mavs when he sucked (0-5 shooting) and against the Celtics when even Dwight sat the 4th quarter because the bench was playing great. When healthy, Lin has played the majority of the 4Q in every game except the two above.

Lin IS getting starter minutes. You guys are making an issue out of nothing.

 

i agree about playing time. bev would get more minutes when harden sits and its bev+ lin. probably about 20 minutes.

SG... positions are outdated.

 

there is no reason for bev to get the ball. if it's lin+ bev, it should be in lin's hands.

 

Response

I have no problem with Mac chew out Lin for some of his bone-headed plays, as long as Mac does the same when Harden, Dwight, Parsons and other players make bone-headed plays or plays with no effort.

 

Yeah...Garnett and Love. He's turrible.

 

I'm not sure if someone already mentioned this, but while it does not make sense to me to bring Lin off the bench for "fit"/"defense", etc. reasons (which many have argued quite persuasively against), there is a certain strategic element to using some of your best offensive pieces against the weakest defensive pieces of the opponent.
In other words, Rockets may be trying to pair Lin against weaker opponent bench players to blow the game open. McHale's substitutions are often reactive, which means a mechanical "you put in your bench, I put in Lin. You put in this guy, I put in that guy." Combined with his bizarre minutes management, you probably end up with lesser minutes for Lin because the opponent bench plays less.
Note also that McHale often group substitutes at the 6 min mark or later in both the first quarter and the 3rd quarter. This means Lin comes in together with a few of the bench. But this means Lin's maximum playing time is 36 min...if he plays straight through, which is hardly realistic. Thus the bench = lower minutes and poor execution.

 

The roster was full. The front office even wanted Parsons to play in Europe but McHale told him to stick around and he'll get signed.

 

I didn't want to make a new thread for this, but Jeremy Lin has one of the lowest opponent FG% at the rim, according the NBA's Player Tracker.

http://stats.nba.com/playerTracking...D_RIM&sortOrder=ASC&filters=MIN*G*20**GP*G*10

 

Baldwin: Jeremy Lin exerts his will: Rockets coach Kevin McHale forced to treat guard like a st

Link

I think the crux of why Jeremy Lin appears to have a short leash has a lot to do with him not "paying his dues." The NBA is a star powered league where early round draft picks get the benefit for the doubt to prove themselves until they can't anymore or players that can put up 20 or more points continue to log minutes even if they get those points by shooting 40% from the field. Lin just doesn't fit this mold.

McHale treats Jeremy Lin like a high school basketball player feeling it really necessary to supplement him with Pat Beverley and also nitpick his actions on both ends of the floor. I honestly don't see any other player on the roster with that much scrutiny.

Look at players like Mike Conley, Isiah Thomas, or Kemba Walker who were pretty average for their first two years and then gradually got better and better with more playing time. I just don't see Jeremy Lin getting that kind of benefit of doubt like these players had.

There are even players like Brandon Jennings, Damian Lillard, and Russell Westbrook who are undoubtedly poor shooters, but with enough burn, create a certain fit on the team as an energy player, distributor, or 3 point specialist. Jeremy Lin doesn't get the kind of burn they do and he's pretty close to the 50-40-90 club when it comes to efficiency.

Coach McHale should give Jeremy Lin a little more "entitlement." For players like Howard and Harden who turnover the ball even more and are just as liable for boneheaded plays, Jeremy Lin, as the original PG who led the team when we had no PG options deserves a little respect. For someone that proved he deserves to be in the league and can be a starting caliber guard, he deserves a little respect. For the greater good of the entire team, McHale needs to establish Jeremy Lin as part of the pecking order. I absolutely understand that the chain of command runs Harden, Howard, Parsons, and then somebody else, but we need that somebody else to be Jeremy Lin. We play so much better when we are consistent about it.

 

This is not a soap opera....it's basketball

 

He's good when he has an elite defensive big man behind him. During Linsanity the defense was one of the best in the league and his defensive advanced stats were really good.