both former Rockets, both multiple time bench all-stars.. probably the best little guys of the last 25 years to bring mediocrity and excitement to the NBA so who are you taking, "linsanity" or "Matt"
No-Brainer...Matt was starting PG when we last reached the WCF and helped us beat Seattle, who had our number in the previous round (in Game 7).
maloney made a bunch of 3's against seattle to push into the WCF. but he couldn't do much else. got his big contract via rudy's daughter, which we had to eat. lin helped us win some regular season games. got his big contract via d'antoni's uptempo offense, which we had to waste a first round draft pick to unload on the fakers. i'm going with the guy who beat the sonics.
Lin is a turnover prone, low IQ, mental midget with the most delusional idiotic fans of any athlete. I'll take Matt and it ain't even close.
Lin ain't horrible skill-wise. He just makes the absolute most r****ded decisions on the court. If he was like Pablo Prigs and didn't turn on panic mode every three seconds, he wouldn't put up as many stats but he'd be serviceable and would be a great backup PG.
You might as well throw Austin Rivers into this. Who would you rather have? Regular Season <PRE> Rk Player From To G GS MP FG FGA FG% 3P 3PA 3P% 2P 2PA 2P% eFG% FT FTA FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS 1 Jeremy Lin 2011 2015 291 170 7826 1167 2668 .437 259 742 .349 908 1926 .471 .486 812 1016 .799 122 649 771 1388 372 106 722 669 3405 2 Matt Maloney 1997 2000 226 179 5964 629 1547 .407 343 916 .374 286 631 .453 .517 183 227 .806 47 329 376 681 180 9 306 273 1784 3 Austin Rivers 2013 2015 206 35 4320 540 1360 .397 103 316 .326 437 1044 .419 .435 254 407 .624 69 321 390 442 119 32 216 402 1437 </PRE> Playoffs <PRE> Rk Player From To G GS MP FG FGA FG% 3P 3PA 3P% 2P 2PA 2P% eFG% FT FTA FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS 1 Jeremy Lin 2013 2014 10 3 26.1 3.1 8.5 .365 0.7 3.5 .200 2.4 5.0 .480 .406 1.5 1.8 .833 0.7 2.3 3.0 3.4 0.5 0.2 2.1 2.4 8.4 2 Matt Maloney 1997 1998 21 21 32.9 3.4 8.7 .388 2.3 6.1 .375 1.1 2.6 .418 .519 1.0 1.4 .733 0.0 1.2 1.3 3.2 0.6 0.2 2.0 2.0 10.1 3 Austin Rivers 2015 2015 9 2 17.0 2.8 6.7 .417 0.8 1.8 .438 2.0 4.9 .409 .475 0.9 1.6 .571 0.6 0.4 1.0 1.1 0.7 0.0 0.7 1.6 7.2 </PRE> It's clear. Maloney was better than both in the regular season and playoffs. Lin is slightly better than Rivers in the playoffs but they both suck.
Obviously it is Matt Maloney. Stupid thread. Needs to be Lin vs Eldridge Recasner. That is a fair debate.