If you look at McHale's rosters and his W/L record alone, you'd be led to believe that he's a pretty decent coach. Unfortunately, if you actually watch any of the rockets' games, McH's coaching decisions will confuse the f%%% out of you.
Jonathan Feigen just wrote a piece on Lin return to Bay Area for first time since ‘Linsanity’. In the article I found McHale's comments on Lin interesting. That should clear some of the 'McHale hates Lin' stuff that a few fans have been chanting on this site : http://blog.chron.com/ultimaterockets/2013/02/lin-back-in-bay-area-for-first-time-since-linsanity/
Lin would get more touches as a 6th man. Beverly can shoot & play defense, that's all we need with the offense running through Harden.
Round peg, square hole. seriously, morey/mchale/les. if you want a pg that can make the simple passes and stay in front of their man on defense, why the hell do you spend 24mil on the guy?? you can get this production out of 5mil/yr player. this is idiotic. i'm not suggesting that we trade lin. i'm suggesting that we bring in someone that knows how to utilize his skills. using the baseball analogy that mchale is using - do you bring in a home run hitter by nature and ask him to be lead-off hitter and expect to get good results? no. that's just asinine. should include this quote too: "Lin did not become a sensation by hitting seeing-eye singles through the hole. He does not often match the Lin of last season, but does show how it was done. Still, it is nice to know he did it once, even if it is not the goal now, as if it was all enough to make him believe the best is yet to come. “People always remember that,” Lin said. “The thing I need to remember and remind myself my role is different. In this one, I’m not as much of the primary playmaker, primary ballhandler. It doesn’t mean I can’t do it. It just means I won’t get as many looks at that. That’s totally fine because it takes pressure off me and we have someone who is really, really, really good, James, who is able to do it. Just learning to play off of him, play with him has been a great learning process for me. “For me, I think that’s something that I see. OK, I’m capable of doing that. I’ve done that before. It’s not something I could have maintained. I still feel like the best parts of my career are yet to come. A lot of that is tied to team success, deep playoff runs and things like that. I don’t think I’ll ever average whatever I averaged in that stretch. But that’s OK with me.” based on what i've seen so far this season, i still don't see why we can't have lin play the PG role, with harden playing the SG role?? we've seen a lot of success with that dynamic - why can't there be a modification in goals in the middle of the season? anyway, based on lin's quote, he obviously believes he can do a lot more than what this offense is asking him to do. he is okay with it, because he's not the type of throw a hissing fit. and his focus is on winning (notice his emphasis on team success and playoff runs) so i guess if he believes his team can win with him playing his limited role, then he's okay with it.
you're absolutely right. and if this is the direction they're headed, then it will make sense for them to trade lin for a 4 in a few years when his trade value is up there. no way they're paying 24mil for a 6th man.
You don't watch the games? I would think if you did that you wouldn't make that statement because the team runs better with Lin in the game.
Does this mean people are back on the trade Patterson bandwagon? http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=232715
To be fair to Morey/Les (I don't think McHale gets to decide who he wants on a team), they never foresaw Harden trade when they signed Lin, nor did Lin. Everybody knows Harden Lin backcourt is not the best fit for both. But for obvious reasons (Lin not trade-able with his contract, and Morey not want to eat his own words: "We plan to hang on this time" https://twitter.com/dmorey/status/225425673521606659.), Morey has to make the duo work, at least for two years. When asked whether he would still have gone after Lin if he had first acquired Harden, Morey said yes. (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/20...s-harden-daryl-morey/index.html#ixzz2KjL3J7NC ) I don't know how sincere that answer was. But one thing good coming out of Lin having to work with Harden and playing off ball more is that he improves his overall games by adding his catch-and-shoot and cutting skills. Nobody knows what will happen in two years when his contract is expiring. Hopefully by then Lin will be a better all-around player.
oh don't get me wrong. i absolutely think they can work well together and CAN be a very good fit. i truly believe they CAN be the best back court in the NBA. BUT, based on mchale's comments and seeing his thought process and his vision of how things should be, i highly, highly doubt he knows how to make that happen. he is taking a system, and forcing players to play in it, rather than developing or even tweaking the system to fit the talent of his team.
If that's the case, he won't be the only coach who does that. It's possible he doesn't really know the player strengths because they are still developing. When you have so many young players who are still developing it's hard to adjust the system to their strengths when it is so inconsistent. What you think is strength one day cannot be relied upon to be there another. Things you can count on: 1) Asik getting rebounds 2) Harden getting to the FT line 3) Defensive effort from Lin, Douglas, and Beverly 4) Legs from all our players (as long as it's not B2B) Everything else is sporadic. For example, you might determine that Lin is terrible at catch and shoot and design a system where he doesn't get those shots, but according to some posters Lin has been shooting 50%+ in Feb and raised his 3-pt % to above 30%. Hard to say what the strength and weaknesses are when they're so inconsistent. We're in a transitional situation so I don't see anything wrong with providing structure where the players can learn to adapt and improve in areas that aren't their strengths. If you try to maximize for their current strengths it could be at the expense of skills development in other areas. Why maximize now and stunt their growth?
Ridiculous baseball analogy. In basketball every goal counts the same. Either you score or you assist in scoring... There is no grandslam hr in basketball. quite simply beyond all the silliness... when you get down to it... Mchale WANTS Lin to JUST be a role player... he is asking Lin to score less and for harden to score more. Lin says well fine... But you pull Lin when he has 2 pts and 6 assists in a quarter because of "ineffectiveness". Mchale wants him to "set the table" but you have harden play PG and park Lin behind the corner 3... Lin says Well fine... He shoots 5 threes... but Lin needs to "learn his role". I don't know how any of this is helping Lin develop as a young player when he is being yo-yo'd around up and down like this... I suspect when Lin writes his autobio someday, there will be a chapter devoted to Mchale and Sampson as just another challenge, another hurdle to get over.
... I know I'm gonna get flak for this even though it's been repeated ad nauseam, but it's sooooooo clear that McHale doesn't think much at all of Lin, perhaps even less than some of those who are down on Lin on this board. He's telling Lin that he will never reach his Linsanity numbers and Lin is actually believing that chit, like the gullible dude that he is. The subtle bigotry of lowered expectations ain't even that subtle in this case.. Like D'Antoni said when asked if Lin could reach Linsanity levels again, "Why not? He's done it before. He's done it in his first year. He's young, isn't he?" If Lin does well in the years to come, it will be in spite of McHale and Sampson. Sorry for the hate on McHale and Sampson. Just my opinion.
I think the biggest thing is whether or not he can hit the 3 with consistency. If he can increase his FG% on 3s, he'll be a more effective scorer and get into the lane even more easily. If he could also develop a tear drop that would help his game a great deal, but more than anything a consistent jumper is going to be the biggest factor is his development.
