McHale "(Lin) rather have 29pts and 9 TOs, I tell him 'we wanna win'""

Smith said. ‘Just finding the lob and finding the guys in the corner for a 3 … not always just looking for his shot.’

McHale has been redeemed!

 

Exactly. Sometimes printed words lose the context of the quote. The world is not out to get Lin.

 

Fair enough, Haymitch was right, I give up. Think whatever you want to think, in the end it doesn't matter, I'm getting that beer now.

 

So he is saying Lin SOMETIMES chooses his stats over wins? dude stop it. First, it was made up quote, Second, context, third, McHale meant it differently, poor choice of word for "rather", how do you explain bringing up 29 points? Clearly it was meant to be in reference to Lin choosing scoring at the expense of TOs and wins. Come to think of it, McHale was being PC with his homerun comments.

 

I would take JR's comments with a grain of salt. And Raymond Felton is a chucking machine.

In the NBA there's the superstars and then there's everybody else. McHale hasn't ever criticised Harden directly because he's a superstar but he's alluded to the fact that sometimes Harden tries to do too much. With everyone else he seems comfortable talking candidly about them.

 

You're putting up a spirited fight, but there's just not enough here to justify your conclusion. Look, this is the ENTIRE part of the article on McHale and Lin.

"Kevin McHale won’t make the same proclamation about Lin. Not yet. The Houston coach calls his playmaker 'a home run hitter,' and doesn’t mean that in a good way.
“'Sometimes he’d rather have 29 points and nine turnovers and I tell him, Jeremy, we’re trying to win,’ McHale said."

You can't blame McHale for not saying more. Surely he did say more, but it's not in the newspaper.

As for your focus on the word "rather," it weakens your argument, not strengthens it. "Rather" implies a comparison between two options. We don't even know what the other option was in the conversation. It could've gone like this:

Daily News: "Do you think Lin is the future PG of your team."
McHale: "He has a lot of potential. We're trying to get him to slow down and be more deliberate with his passing, but he's a home run hitter. He'd rather. . . ."

There are many harmless explanations. What do YOU imagine the conversation was like:

Daily News: "Do you think Lin is a selfish player who doesn't want to win?"
McHale: "Well, he's a home run hitter. He'd rather. . . ."

 

Nope, for me, its about Lin would RATHER score 29 points and have crazy number of TOs at the expense of the team.

 

And Raymond Felton is averaging 6 assists per game playing with Tyson Chandler, Carmelo Anthony, Amare Stoudemire, and Steve Novak. While being the primary ball handler.

 

wow... rather is clearly a comparison of getting his points vs crazy high TOs. Go read his comments again. Dude stop trying so hard.

 

You're flat wrong. Nowhere is he comparing points to turnovers. You're slipping fast now.

 

ok, your guys win. finally you prove lin is selfish. it does prove my point too. we believe what mchale said give an impression that lin is selfish. alot posters here deny it.

good, win-win happy ending debate.

 

Roxxy said that the Knicks do a point guard by committee system so Felton is like the Jeremy Lin of Houston.

 

The home run hitter set the context, an example would be with scores tied, runner on 3rd and 1 out, some guy might try to hit a home run, but that risks an infield fly, whereas a controlled outfield fly ball wins the game.

In other words he needs to let the game come to him rather than force the issue. It's when he gets in that mindset that he runs into trouble, and the turnovers start piling up, the bad type that come from him trapping himself, and not the good ones that come from him trying to create easy scoring opportunities.

 

But like I was saying before, in that latest interview a reporter asked about Beverly's rebounding and McHale said that Beverly would rather get offensive boards and not get back on defense, and he needs to tone it back because it hurts the team. So unless your problem is with the last part of the quote("I tell him 'we wanna win'"), I don't get how what he said about Beverly is any different than what he said about Lin? Is it just that he used literal numbers in the Lin quote?

 

And I have still not found a single piece corroborating that Daily News quote. Anywhere on the web. The Daily Rag is not viewed by New Yorkers as a reliable source of news. And even more suspicious is that not a single other sports news source has picked that quote up.

 

Selfish players are only selfish in some games, not every single game. Melo can prove that. Heck, even JR isn't a knuckle head every single game. TMac got crucified for saying SOMETIMES he didn't try hard enough with the Magic in his last year in Orlando.

When do you tell your player, "we are trying to win"? Obviously, only when you feel that what he did wasn't in the best interest/chance of winning. I am totally fine with that. But "he'd rather", ok, "sometimes", is more about priority or intention than mistake in action, which is a lot more serious.

I believe it was just unfortunate and mis-use of words. But the spinning of "tough love" by some posters really irritated me. That was the only reason I chimed in at 27th page. I've never had a problem when McHale chewed Lin out at sidelines or timeouts, and I never raised eyebrow whenever McHale put Lin on the bench. But I always feel that a coach should be strict with their players in game and practice, but a lot more protective and supportive facing media.

 

Coming from a fan of lin, my interpretation. I don't think Mchale was referring to lin wanting to score 29 pts personally but as a team making home run passes or plays to score. For example in the Thunders game when up 6 pts with about 30 sec to play, he had the ball and instead of keeping it and kill time, wait for them to foul. He threw a long pass to Delfino for a layup which he missed. This is the kind of scoring mentality, I think Mchale is referring to, and not Lin personally wanting to score himself.

 

Rather score, resulting in high TO than win. To say he had to remind Lin we are trying to win is clear sign that he thinks Lin has different objective in mind, which is to score.

Ok, you can make up all the hypothetical scenarios as much as you like in terms of context, going into McHale's mind on what he really meant. I will just go with what he said. Unless he denies this quote, it is what it is. Even many apologists has agreed it is offensive, now you can spin it all you want. Doesn't change a thing.

 

I'm with you.

 

Thank you Hay, that was easy.:grin: