Read what you want to read dude. I am not saying Jlin will be as good as Durant. I am saying young players needs a fraternity kind of environment to grow, where they are not afraid of making mistakes, missing shots, and have a patient and disciplining coach.
Why in the name of all that is holy is this freaking thread still allowed by Clutch and crew to stay open? Close this idiocy already! On Topic: That is reserved for players that are good/great. Lin was not nearly good enough to deserve the environment and treatment reserved for franchise or cornerstone players.
D League is all about individual stats. Come on! Even now, Lin would be a solid NBA player who worth at least 3 million / year. I agree that 25 mil / 3 years is too much, but that was "genius" Morey's handy work. Signed him, and picked a douche bag coach "teaching" him the way. Clueless.
All players would be developed faster if they have that kind of environment, being a special player or not. It's up to the team to come up with that kind of environment.
It's common for players tabbed to be franchise cornerstones to immediately be thrown into the fire to get them ready. Not all players are afforded this freedom. And as much as his fans say it, I refuse to believe this whole McHale and trust crap. Lin got a lot of minutes while he was here. All that bs about being pulled out of games as soon as he made 1 mistake was a bunch of bull. Lin was shaky because he wasn't good at doing what we needed him to do, no other reason. And the only reason we needed him to do something else is because we had a much better player to do what Lin was good at.
It is up to the team to prioritize who gets special treatment. Lin, after we got Harden, was never in our long term plans so why the hell would we waste time and resources trying to develop him. He was always going to be redundant once we got Harden. Lin was already on his way out, especially given how we tried to trade him every chance we had.
apparently I want to read gibberish. A fraternity, mistake ridden environment with a "disciplining" coach? Sure, it's fine to throw guys out there when you have no alternative for a bad team, but winning teams don't do that.
There are too many of you. Don't have the time to reply all. I would like to reiterate as a conclusion for my posts today (I do have a job you know): The bottom line is: No PG could flourish without the ball. No player could develop properly without a large amount of trust from his coach.
But plenty of point guards have flourished in an off ball role. The whole trust thing just sounds like a way for Lins fans to rationalize why Lin didn't perform. Just a load of crap.
The staff also has to worry about winning so a balance must be found. I think Lin has had plenty of opportunity here. He got a lot of minutes and produced decent but mixed results. He's gone because of his contract and management's pursuit of Bosh. I think he is worth keeping at around 5 million a year and losing him is a step back in light of what unfolded during free agency. But the offseason is not over yet. Regardless, I don't think his production is hard to replace.
The purpose of keeping this thread open is to keep website traffic up and to let everyone blame Lin for the shortcomings of the team...