[ClutchFans] The numbers are clear: Patrick Beverley deserves to start over Jeremy Lin

Have you ever seen McFail pulled Beverly when (often) he palyed badly??

 

You must be one of those bugs getting drawn to the light.

In all seriousness, I can't believe people are still arguing about this. Can't wait for the game tonight.

 

Spurs Coach Popovich (sp?) - does not necessarily hold a player's hands per say, but he damn well knows how to maximize the talent of his players, motivate them and get the most out of them.

 

Apologies on that. I admit I get too caught up a lot on getting dragged in and frustrated by the more umm... crazy Lin fans and end up being combative as opposed to doing what I normally love doing, talking Rockets ball. As long as the person is civil though and respects the Rocket (from my perspective of course), I will give them the basic respect of at least taking them seriously and answering seriously.

 

Personally I'd just run more pnr since it's the one thing Rockets are already elite at.

You guys don't run enough plays to warrant an overall upgrade at the 1. All you need is a 3 and D guy. The thing is, Rockets are 25/30 in 3FG% while spending a ton of possessions on an offense that requires to hit 3's to win. All that 3 and D guy will do is make you guys an average 3 pt shooting team instead of below average.

 

Weird how the guy who never gets pulled when playing badly or makes mistakes averages 31.6 minutes per game and the guy who always gets pulled when playing badly or after making mistakes averages 30.5 minutes per game.

How can that be?

 

This, the Rockets paying for an upgrade at PG is just throwing money away. What the Rockets need is for Bev to get better at shooting the 3.

 

Oh Lord.

 

If by Bev you mean Bev, Lin, and Harden, yes.

 

Thank you for proving my point.

The Rockets run PNR 16% of the time, (I never said they did it a lot BTW), which is far more than people on this board seem to think. The Rockets do run set plays and they do have a system.

Also, the PNR is in part as effective as it is, because the Rockets are some what unpredictable.

The Rockets struggles on offense (which are very relative btw) are because they are not hitting a sufficient % of threes. If the Rockets had a PG hitting 40% or a SG hitting 40%, the offense would be running extremely well.

The Rockets are a work in progress. They are still adding pieces. Harden's % has dropped from 39% to 37% to 33%. He is obviously too good overall to trade, that leaves PG, PF and the bench where improvement can be made.

As it is, the Rockets are playing with a BAD starting PG and a BAD bench, which is hard to win with.

I fully expect to see the Rockets target players like Channing Frye, Martell Webster, Mike Dunleavy, Kyle Lowry, Brandon Rush and other players that can hit 3's which allow the spacing to improve.

The Rockets DO have a system/philosophy, they do can/run plays and their is nothing wrong with their system.

 

The Rockets were one of the best 3 point shooting teams in the NBA last year.

It does not matter if it makes the Rockets go from "bad" to "average", it improves the Rockets offensive production, and opens up the PNR and post play.

Everthing is inner connected. The Rockets need to hit a decent percentage of 3's to really get their offense humming.

 

Lin's success != Rockets success.

Obviously Lin's success would contribute to the team's success. Morey has done an incredible job putting this team together. Every GM makes mistakes.

I do have doubts about McHale though. It goes beyond Lin.

 

Yeah, they've all been mediocre with the 3, but Bev is out there soley to play D and hit the 3. Harden is Harden, he's out there to score points, and he gets them whether his 3 is falling or not. Lin's job is supposedly running the bench, and he, like Harden has other means of scoring, not sure what's wrong with him lately.

But Bev is a very limited player, he needs to hit the 3 better.

 

Harden isn't playing tonight. Out with a thumb injury. Bummer!

Oh, and I thought I was posting this in the game thread. Nevermind.

 

No question. He just needs to attack the basket when he gets the ball. Be a little selfish and play his game. The rest with fall into place. I'm quite sure that when Dwight is catching lobs and Lin is going to the line 6 times a game we will be a better team

 

First off, name calling isn't going to help your case here. It only suggests to me that you already have a bias. And yes, I've seen Pat get pulled. Have you? Pat doesn't get pulled as often because he's a low risk player. He's not going to have the turnover numbers Lin has simply due to the difference in play style. He also won't have the offensive output, but this is a trade off I think McHale prefers. Low risk, low reward hustle guy that differs to Harden and Howard. That is why I think McHale sticks with Pat as a starter.

And I won't reiterate the massive difference (sarcasm) in minutes between Pat and Jeremy that has already been cited.

 

It doesn't really matter that he's limited given the team setup, all he has to do is play strong defense and hit the 3 ball at a decent rate, and thats all we need from Beverley, anything else is gravy. Obviously no one likes these 1-10 games from him, but frankley I'd still want him taking the shots he's taking, he HAS to take open 3s, not blow layups, to keep the defence honest.

 

There is a huge difference between coddling a player and getting the most out of him. There's a reason Pop is a very good coach. Light years ahead of (and more experienced) than McHale. Would Lin be better under Pop? Almost certainly. But so would every other Rocket. On the other hand, Lin or Pat underperformed for Pop, do you think they would be given a longer leash than they have here?

So yes, coaching is important and the better coaches tend to get more out of their players. But let's not kid ourselves here, that's not the biggest reason why our PG position is suffering.

 

If he is aggressive and McHale yanks him you will see me being the first person criticizing his coaching. I don't want Lin to give him that option. After every game it's the same debate because Jeremy doesn't assert himself. He plays best when he's not worrying about anything. I promise Howard and Harden will love to play off the Lin that makes the defense work to guard him.

No argument on any of this. Like I said, all the more reason to play his game. No matter what anyone here says, if Lin is kicking ass and Mchale curbs him we are going to be pissed as Rockets fans. If he's scoring and making plays he is our best PG option. It's up to him to do it though.

He needs to force McHale's hand. Bev and rooks are what they are. Lin is a wild card

 

A lot of you guys blast this poster for his criticisms of Lin but read this post carefully. To me it sounds like a Rockets fan who wants to see that Jeremy we saw part of last year and to start this year.

I'm 100% with King1 on this. Lin needs to force McHale's hand. He needs to play so fearlessly that coach will get chewed from all angles if he pulls him. And I'm not talking about making shots. I'm talking about going balls out, "damn the torpedoes", "Try and stop me" mode. We've seen it in flashes but lately he seems so worried about what might happen if he makes a mistake that it leads to tentative play, and then mistakes.

Like Crash Davis said, "You be cocky and arrogant, even when you're getting beat. That's the secret. You gotta play this game with fear and arrogance."