I like how in that entire block of text you ignored to mention that Jeremy Lin is 2 years older than John Wall.
Rank of Greatest Systems in NBA History 1) Phil Jackson's/Tex Winter's Triangle 2) Pat Riley's Showtime 3) Jerry Sloan's PnR w/ backdoor cuts and continual screening 4) Pops motion offense . . . LAST McFail's ISO/No Set Plays System
Lin is 2 years older, Wall has 6100 minutes played in the NBA vs 3500 minutes played for Lin. So, yes. Lin is 2 years older, Wall has double the experience in the NBA. Personally I put more weight on experience vs age. While age does tie into athleticism, it's far less relevant for skills. There are plenty of NBA players who improve their skill set later in their careers whether it's shooting, shot selection, post up fundamentals or defense. It's more the question of whether they are serious about improving those skills. For example, Dragic is in his 9th season as a professional. I just don't see a significant upside on Dragic this late in his career as opposed to Lowry who still has some upside to go. Finally, I personally believe that skill based weaknesses are eminently fixable if the player has enough of a work ethic. Shooting, off hand ball handling, learning offenses/defenses are all skills. Those generally do improve if the player is serious enough about improving those skills. Asik is a good example of this. During this season his offensive game has gone from near zero to significantly better than zero. He's not an offensive all star, but he's improving and will continue to improve because of his work ethic. Nobody on the Rockets is a finished product.
Perhaps age matters more. Perhaps experience. But you gotta include at least these two basic tenants if you want to write something you feel is in-depth.
Obviously, age matters. But we aren't talking about a 25 year-old against a 35 year-old. We're talking about a 24 year-old against a 22 year-old. Neither of these guys have entered their peak years, and neither of them are old enough to have their performance start declining. You can add "Player X is 24" and "Player Y is 22" to the hypothetical I made before, and it wouldn't change much in the analysis. At any rate, I'm not out to prove that one guy is better than the other. I was simply responding to the repeated assertion people have made that John Wall's recent performance somehow proves that he is better than Jeremy Lin. That argument by itself is not correct, because: a) cherry-picking data is bad, and b) the argument that one player's last 25 games is more indicative of his potential than another player's first 25 games is specious. Basically, I was trying to find a nice way of asking what it is about Jeremy Lin that makes people dismiss his first 25 games, and what is it about John Wall that makes people accept his last 25 games. Because when you strip away the actual player names, the logic doesn't make sense. Taken as a whole, John Wall and Jeremy Lin have actually performed pretty similarly up to this point. Wall's recent performance spike might indicate that he has the talent to perform better than in the past, but the same could be true of Lin's early games (or any of his better games this year). At this point, I don't think there's really any reason for someone to say that one is appreciably better than the other, or will be significantly better than the other over the course of their careers. Has building up or tearing down Jeremy Lin really come to whether or not he is or is not better than John Wall? Isn't it possible that both of these guys are good?
I like how in your simplistic reply you don't mention Jeremy Lin has played less minutes in his career that John Wall did before his recent 25 game stretch.
Lol, delusional LOFs still comparing Jeremy Lin to John Wall. One guy is a max player and the other is Jeremy Lin. He couldn't even outplay the Lakers' backup pg Steve Blake last night.
At least YOFs supported a player who was the best at his position during his prime. Sometimes I wonder how much support Lin would have if he was not Asian.
