Well imo, even though he is not the "strongest mentally" right now, he has time to improve. This is the first year they are all playing together, it is also the first year jeremy is playing a full season + post-season. he's probably physically and mentally not handling it right now but it's not like he's gonna be like this forever..
Jeremys strengths are running a team and playing team oriented basketball like guys like Stockton and Nash versus the one on one type guys like Iverson or the spot up shooters like Steve Kerr and we saw how successful he can be when he plays PG in a team oriented manner. So it is like a fish out of water. If you put Iverson and want him to operate on the old Jazz team like Stockton, he wont do well. If you have Stockton play on a Philly team to dominate the ball and score 30 a night, he cant do that either. Frustrating thing is we just arent utilizing him properly and there are 2 options, one is to continue this and let him develop and become a Steve Kerr like player or the other is play a team oriented game and move the ball around assuming he continues to be a rocket.
This is an EXCELLENT point. Ball handling is not just about being able to dribble. It's about ALL aspects of handling the ball. It's about catching the ball, snagging rebounds, being able to pull up and shoot with either hand. If you dribbled with your left hand 1000 times a day, you will notice a vast improvement not just in your dribbling, but in your left hand layups and your left hand catching. You'll also be able to pull up and shoot with your left hand much easier than before. My point is if Jeremy would do this in the offseason he'll be much more skilled than he is now.
Unless he decides to focus more on school than basketball this off season because of the asian thing. Ugh why did you bait me into saying something stereotypical. Am I doing that right?
Here's Chris Paul at his camp telling his students how he got his handles. You don't think Lin would benefit from this? <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/mgdaiWO3b14" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
JLin is simple to guard and I bet PBev gives him fits in practice. 1. See if his jump shot is falling, if not, let him shoot tell his wrist falls off 2. He's hitting his jump shot, push up on him and force him left into the lane. He will JUMP in the air and make a crazy pass or shoot something off balance. 3. Force into the lane, where he picks up his dribble and holds the ball for a timeout or jump ball or turnover. He's the easiest PG in the league to guard, becuase everything he does is perdictable.
Funny you compare Lin to TWO OF THE BEST SHOOTERS OF ALL-TIME!!!! What an insult to those two players. Lin's strengths are NOTHING. He has holes in his game everywhere. Finishing, dribbling, shooting, passing.
When you look into the personal background of star NBA players, and you'll find that they went through a program similar to this: Junior High level AAU summer league, Elite Basketball Prep schools (Oak Hill, Dominguez, Archbishop Mitty, etc.), Elite basketball colleges (Duke, Kentucky, Indiana, etc.) Lin did not go through any of those. No AAU ball, Palo Alto high school, Harvard... so he's almost 10 years behind in terms of development and experience. Stephen Curry is the son of NBA legend Dell Curry, Klay Thompson is the son of former Laker Michael Thompson. A lot of NBA players come from parents who were also NBA or college players, so they would know how to get their sons into sports. Jeremy Lin's parents are Electrical engineers from Taiwan. See the difference ? Lin has some natural gifts, namely his quick first step and his size at the point guard position, but there's a huge gap between what he has learned, and what other NBA players have learned from training. Sometimes, it doesn't matter how hard you practice ... if you don't practice with the right program, coaches, trainers, etc.
Alternatively, Lin gave the team absolutely nothing and gifted OKC with several live ball turnovers which contributed to the game changing run in the 2nd quarter. Unacceptable performance by the starting PG of a playoff time. A complete joke. This is definitely not Jeremy Lin's team. Faulty premises, faulty logic, terrible post.
Lin either needs to fit himself in the offense philosophy or ask for a trade then, because no way is he good enough to a player who design an offense around. We have Harden. We will design the offense around him and draft players around him. Lin is a nobody compared to Harden.
This is an interesting point of view but I think incorrect... Yes he does use his first step for 90% of his attacking options but to say his skills are more raw than most is just not right. Like many have already stated, I've seen him use a number of crossover dribbles and hesitations in other games but he seems to use them sparsely. I'd say from my playing experience, it's probably because the level of competition is so high that even though he has the ability to do these moves, the risk of someone stripping you or poking the ball away increases significantly when you try to make the moves that say Chris Paul or Westbrook make. We are already dead last in TOs as a team so I guess you could say just let him try cus we can't get any worse but at the same time you don't want to add to the problem. I'm also fairly sure he is and has been working very hard on his PG skills in the off season as it his job to do so.
He isn't as good as Stockton or Nash. His handles aren't as good as either of those guys and he can't shoot as well as them. He picks up his dribble way too often, and sometimes he will just drive into the paint with 3 defenders with no where to go hoping to get a call, but to be honest so does harden. He needs to improve his shooting a lot because if he is wide open he needs to make the shot instead of trying to drive it in. There was one play were he was on the right baseline and he was trying to make a bounce pass it to the left baseline and Durant was right there. There was no way he could have made that pass yet he still did it. Durant was just standing right there.
I don't agree, that was just his reaction from last night's game. He wasn't that stupid in every game.
