But that's just it DD. It was the coaching staff who blew the Lin evaluation, not Morey. If reports I've heard are to be believed and Lin was actually outplaying our guards in practice, then the onus for cutting him has to fall on Kevin "After Dinner Speaker" McHale and the rest of his staff. Even if they had guards under contract, if the kid was showing that he was that good, then the right decision was to go with the more talented player. Well, I expect Lin to really flourish in the Knicks' system plus he's playing on a team with more NBA caliber talent than is Lowery so his ceiling has to be considered higher at this point in time. Well we ARE stuck holding the bag on that collection of draft busts. At this time the best Morey can hope for is to find some GM who is channeling CD who would be stupid enough to take one or more of them off Morey's hands. All I can is good luck with that one. Not sure about all that but I believe that this is a job for a someone who has a clearly defined vision of what it takes to win a title in the NBA and a clearly defined plan to execute said vision. In the six years he's been GM of the Rox, I have never been convinced that Morey meets those two criteria which, of course, goes a long way toward explaining why the Rockets remain stuck in the middle tier of the NBA. Unfortunately for Morey, the NBA is a results driven league.
If I agreed with this (and I don't), then its both on the coaching staff and on the front office. Morey hired McHale because he trusted his ability to evaluate the players he brings him, and ultimately the decision still lies with him. So, I don't think we can put responsibility on one and not the other. Its an organization decision. However, I would say that even if Lin had a great training camp, the realities are you can't know just from that how good he could be and be able to project that he'd be better than, say, Dragic. For new, inexperienced players, training camp is an opportunity to convince the team that they deserve to be on an NBA roster and battle for rotation minutes. It takes much more than an abridged training camp to convince the team that a new player can be a star. Unfortunately, Lin didn't have that opportunity with us. If we managed to trade one of our other PGs (e.g. the Gasol deal), then he would have. I want to see what the Rockets manage to do with Dragic/Flynn by this trade deadline. If they're both still on the team, then losing Lin because of them would be a MAJOR disappointment. We need to somehow find a way to use them to upgrade our roster.
I don't get the big fuss over Lin. He has played well, but IMO I can still see him falling back to earth (where his role would be career back up) Kyle Lowry played half a season (last year) in beast mode and people were still doubting his ability this year before the season began. IMO Flynn could go somewhere and play well, so could Williams. I think you put Dragic in the same spot as Lin, as he plays somewhat comparable.
Great post. Lin is a good player, but far, far, far from special. (As shown by his 5.7 turnovers a game as a starter...) Raymond Felton was black jesus in that offense.
I think Lin can be special, and I hope he turns out to be. Its a great story. That said, it sucks that the likely consequence will be the GARM getting inundated by "Fire Morey! Fire McHale! These guys SUCK at their job!"-type posts.
It is a great story and I wish him the best, but yeah I don't think he is "special", I think he is solid. I am beginning to wonder If he will ever muster a 2-1 assist to turnover ratio. I'm happy with our stud of a point guard, who consistently makes half the Clutchfan's population eat crow every couple of weeks. It's beautiful. Sweet, sweet silence...
