Kelvin Sampson discusses the Rockets' growth on offense, the Jeremy Lin-James Harden

That's the thing. People who have no clue will look at certain numbers only. That's why there are so many selfish players out there.

 

True. He needs to learn to be more selfish and demand the ball. Les I'm sure would give Morey an earfull is Lin is unhappy and we all know why.

 

if* Lin is unhappy...sorry typo

 

Is this meant to be a troll post? How do you factor the fact that Lin has a USG rate lower than 45/50 PGs in the NBA right now? Do you not think that Lin standing in the corner trying to spot up 3's as per the coach's gameplan is going to influence his production on offence?

The fact that you deliberately blind yourself to such basic, obvious and important realities suggests that you aren't able to look at the situation with the slightest smidgen of objectivity.

 

You know the guy doesn't know what he's talking about when he lists assists per game without regard to minutes played or usage rate, and lists under 'arguably better' in assists ... wait for it ... George Hill. The career 3.7assists/36min 'PG'

 

By numbers, yeah Lin is underperforming. But it's clearly because he is not being used like a pg. just watch tonite how often he just stands at the corner and how often the ball is out of his hands. It will be interesting given that this is Lin's bobble head night. To continue to underuse him while promoting him would be quite ironic.

 

In the five games with our current "isolate the Beard to death" offense, Harden has been averaging 17 points, 4 boards, and 4 assists a game, and has been shooting a miserable 0.330.

You can't tell me that the current offensive system is good for either of our starting guards -- Harden OR Lin.

 

Ppl have been emphasizing Lin's under usage and the detriment to his game and development... I am glad someone is bringing up what this is doing to Harden. I truly believe what we saw from the first two games is what they have the potential to be night in night out. For the coaches to then impose on both of them this ridiculous game plan is just infuriating. Hardens numbers are falling rapidly as well along with Lin's. and then McFail and now Sampson have the gall to get all pissy after the game about how their young players couldn't execute their sets properly. Man I never thought coming into this season we would have so much frustration coming from the coaching side of the game. In my view at least 2 of the losses are directly responsible by bad coaching (Portland down the stretch and Miami last minute). At least 2 of the wins are directly the result of NO coaching (first two games).

 

When it comes to big money, people shoot off their big mouths and expose their empty minds.

It's like all those Tea Party idiots who complained about their taxes skyrocketing when tax rates actually went down.

Or people who think that welfare accounts for something like 50% of the federal budget.

Not to get too political, but if you play to people's deep-seated prejudices, you can get to them to believe anything, even simple numbers.

 

But you have to remember how dependent the team became on Lin-Harden in the first couple of games. Parsons was a brick-layer, and Asik was a non-entity on offense.

In fact, our biggest concerns after the first couple of games was about Lin-Harden's MPG.

I think the coaching staff is working on making the team a more well-rounded team that doesn't need Lin-Harden to carry it all the time.

Perhaps right now, they're trying to see how much Harden can individually carry the team if he's needed to do so.

I'm trying to be optimistic.

 

Can we stop making Lin pretend he's a crap-ass SG and let him play PG, where he belongs?

 

Klelvin's naive and simplistic outlook shows why he has yet to be and will never be a head coach in the NBA

 

Every time he goes to the corner I die a little on the inside & every time Harden is forced to do some hero ball nonsense because the play broke I die a lot on the inside.

 

We're worried about being too dependent on Lin and Harden, so the solution is to become super dependent on Harden only? If we put it that baldly, the strategy sounds pretty dumb, doesn't it? If we're worried about wearing out the two starting guards, the answer is NOT to load it all on one of them.

One possible answer is to split up Lin and Harden for a portion of the game. Play Lin while Harden rests, and Harden while Lin rests. Of course, this only works if both guys are allowed to make plays.

 

Yes, and the thing is, this current offense is not, say, good for James Harden at the expense of Jeremy Lin, but is acceptable Harden is the better player, so Jeremy Lin needs to make the sacrifice.

This current offense is not good for James Harden, not good for Jeremy Lin, and not good for the Rockets as a whole. It's a lose-lose-lose.

I believe Morey paid Harden to be a high efficiency player, who with higher usage may lose a bit of the efficiency, but still be ultra efficient. This offense has lead to James Harden shooting 17% from 3, 33% overall FG, and 44% TS% in the last 5 games. And it's taken the ball out of our best playmaker, only to make him a corner spot-up 3pt shooter, essentially the most inefficient and mind-boggling way to use him.

Especially having Lin bring up the ball to mid-court and passing the ball to Harden to run down the clock before making an iso move for a shot or a one pass and done offense.

But be patient ... it's still only 7 games in.

 

I wonder how long Harden will put up with shooting 0.330 and <b>demand</b> a change to the offense. Or perhaps the coaching staff will wake up, but I have less hope of that.

 

Parsons and Asik have been getting a lot more involved on the offense. It hasn't been Harden iso all the time.

The outsider in this scheme is Jeremy Lin, who doesn't get to play his best game. But he's still dishing out a lot of assists for a guy with his usage rate, and he seems to be getting a bit better in his spot-up shooting (airball notwithstanding).

 

What I'm saying is that both Lin and Harden are used incorrectly, or at least not optimally ... but perhaps this will help the development of both players, to have put Lin in his uncomfortable spot-shooter role (but Jason Kidd has done it somewhat), and Harden goes directly from 6th man to the alpha dog which he is not ready for, at least with this supporting cast.

The development and experience may be good for them long-term ... just hope this offense doesn't stay long-term.

 

Lin gets even less usage than the likes of Raymond Felton.

Here's Lin's advanced stats:
http://www.nba.com/advancedstats/player.html#Jeremy-Lin|202391;year=201213;season=r


Here's Felton's:
http://www.nba.com/advancedstats/player.html#Raymond-Felton|101109;year=201213;season=r

Some interesting numbers:
- Felton takes 3.3 more shots per game.
- Felton has shot only 5 less shots TOTAL and played 2 less games.
- Felton has 5.8% more usage than Lin.

Jeremy Lin will continue to struggle and look awful the longer we're in our current offensive scheme.