Fact is, there are other MVP candidates. http://www.nba.com/mvp-ladder/ Harden is not MVP, but he is an MVP candidate therefore he is MVP level. Most definitely rockets MVP. If you are an MVP candidate IMO, then you are playing at MVP level. But hey, if you choose to define MVP level are for players who has won MVP of the Year then that's fine. Harden is not MVP by your definition. Ain't nothing wrong with that.
U must not watch enough basketball if u choose to compare him to an all star. He's more of a janero pargo type.
OMR, be honest. Did you even read those two posts before replying? Because you missed the entire point and went on some rant about how he is making a stupid comment. Oh the irony.
Lin fans, you can defend Lin all you want, that's fine. Just don't make up false statistics about him. Thank you
Nash was a star and he was in the same situation last year. Lakers took one of the best pnr 1's in the history of the league and made him run the Princeton for a couple months, then play off ball and defer to a ball-dominant until he threw out his back in two places. And it was pretty much a given the offense was gonna run through Lin before Harden was signed and they were gonna play to his strengths. Then Harden came on and Lin became the secondary ballhandler and spot-up shooter. Not that I blame the FO, you get the opportunity to sign Harden you jump on it but Lin wasn't signed as a roleplayer - his role ended up changing after he was signed. Anyway the Lin nonsense on this board is overblown. Everyone's just using the eye test and seeing what they wanna see. Statistically he's got one of the highest TS% at the 1 spot and his PER is better than Beverley's. He also has a big TO problem that he needs to fix. But every time he makes a mistake, you got people here saying it's time for Lin to go to D League and Canaan to take his place. That's just hella dumb
Look at the color at the center of the photo -- to say the Rockets aren't racist is to ignore the pulse of ignorance.
This doesn't really respond to my comment, but seeing as how you tend to not really read the posts you're responding to anyways, can't say I'm surprised.
Fair point, but few get the chance to prove it so they remain tenable hypotheses at best. At least with Lin we've had a good number of test runs at it haha. Also, my point with that statement was to point out that the post of the person I quoted was not that inflammatory of a comment...in fact, you proved my point by saying it's quite an innocuous thing to say (i.e., doesn't mean much), so for Comet to take that and run with it and make it as if the other poster were a hardcore LOF spewing crazy LOF talk was...eh... BUT to jump back onto your comment, Lin's also one of the best drivers to the rim in the league. That's with or without Harden on the floor (i.e., just this season), so he does have that as a huge advantage separating him from other players in the nba. I actually even remember a chart (posted on CF?) from a few weeks ago that showed he was actually more effective at driving to the rim than Parsons or Harden (forgot if it accounted for drawing fouls or not, which notably is a big diff for Harden).
There are a few players in this league who, when given free reign, put up numbers. Kendall Marshall has been playing well under D'Antoni, and Felton had his career year playing with D'Antoni. Tyreke Evans was given a green card in his rookie season and he put up 20/6/5 on a lottery team, but he struggled since then fitting next to Cousins. Mike James is one of the most prominent example of a player who thrived at the cost of his team's success. Point is, if you want to give a player the green light, a ton of players will succeed in that position. The problem is, most of these players won't ever take your team anywhere, and they are essentially putting up empty stats. Lin is a good player, but there is little to no chance that a team will go anywhere if he is your number 1 option, and it wouldn't be an insult to make that claim. If this is the path that Lin plans to take, he will only put up numbers on a perpetual lottery team. If he wants to be an important member of a championship caliber team on the other hand, he will have to adjust his game and fit star players. Of course, like I already said, there is no shame in taking a backseat. Harden himself was more than willing to accept a bench role for OKC, behind Durant and Westbrook, for the chance of a championship. Kevin McHale was happy to come off the bench for OKC, and so was Manu Ginobli.
I don't know where is your expectations coming from when clearly he's being used and treated as a bench role player. Stevie's past treatment is on another level.
And I think JLin more than once showed us that he can take the backseat. But I won't fault him if he wants out after his contract is up. He'll be looking for his grand payday. Some lottery team might have a real interest. He's still young. The window for getting a ring is still big. Why not earn some cash first and worry about getting a ring a little bit later? Though, if he signs again for a lower price, I think he's very much welcome for the Rockets.
While your general statement is true, why do you assume a lin led team will surely be lottery? I'm sure a Lin fan will show you the winning percentage of teams with lin as 1st option, both from linsanity and Houston. Just saying, at least what has happened so far is contrary to your assumption.
14 game sample size for Beverley = Deserves to start (dw I agree) 17 games of Lin averaging 23/8 49% shooting = tiny sample size
The question was whether or not a Lin led team would not be lottery bound. Of course it'll take a bigger sample size than who should start.
Look at the win/loss ratio when Lin was the number 1 option or when he is used as "the" point guard. Lin does not need to be a number 1 option in a team, he is always a team first player, he makes the offense better for everyone around him. Linsanity is really not about Lin himself, it is about a bunch of non-super star players playing team bb, playing for each other, Lin was happened to be in the situation that he had to do all the playmaking duty and he shined. He was never in a bad team padding his stats. He is a winner.
Yes we brought in Lin to run our offense at the time, but don't you remember what the situation was? We just blew up our team and were getting ready to tank for a rebuild. Our best player with K-Mart, someone who would flourish as an off the ball player in a PnR offense. We waived our most popular player in Scola and traded/let go the rest in Lowry and Dragic. The main reason DM even got Lin (who really isn't a DM type of player at all) was because our benevolent owner Les was upset that Linsanity happened in NYC and not H-Town. Remember Les's quote about Lin? Here are the immediate quotes: "Unbelievable," Alexander recalled. "I watched him play against Toronto and I was so mad because he was playing so well. I said, 'Lin just scored the tying basket. Oh my God, he just hit the winning basket!' And I hung up on him because I was so angry." "It's always difficult when you've obviously made an error," Alexander said. "We made an error in letting him go. I think we rectified it now. No one should fool themselves into thinking that we were bringing in Lin to be a real star. This was all about Les wanting Lin after Linsanity in almost knee-jerk fashion. He had him, we let him go for Flynn, now all those seats and overseas money was in NY. With BOTH Asik and Lin, DM then took a gamble with the balloon payments to steal them from their respective teams WITHOUT losing the ability to sign another max player later on. Then we got Harden to play for us. Now I will never say that Lin deserves to go to the D-League, though he has often played that bad this season. I definitely do not think Canaan is ready to take anyone's place in the NBA. What I do strongly believe however, was that Daryl Morey never believed that Lin will be our long term offense solution. He was a stop gap move made to appease an angry boss. Now, does that make Lin a bad player? Not in the least. Lin is a solid PG that gets really down sometimes and works hard enough to be able to constantly improve. I will stop here, because I now my assessment of Lin as a PG will instantly bring r****ded calls of LoH.
That's just not true. Les is a business man and a smart one, but he is not Dolan. If you think the reason for Morey to go after a certain free agent is because of Les "upset" or personal preference, you are wrong. Like you said, the Rox was in a rebuilding mode. Morey needed some contracts to fill the salary floor, and by doing so, Lin and Asik were 2 reasonable gamble. Hence you look at the salary structure and it made perfect sense. It's a gamble so those 2 players were never in the Rox long term plan. If Morey will be right, that both Lin/Asik out perform their average contract value (8 mils plus per year), that means Morey can have a good chip to trade in their last year of the contract, and by doing so, he will save 7 mils of actual payment for each player and also probably getting back some nice assets in the process. If Morey will be wrong, that both Lin and Asik will be a flop, by the trade deadline of the 3rd year, he still will have 2 big and expiring contracts to play with, judging by his resume, that may not be a bad thing at all. This is the mindset and reason why these so called poison pill contracts were constructed. Both Lin and Asik are 2 reasonable gamble and that's it. They were never expected to be the building blocks for Rockets future.
