Not at all. CH is making perfect sense. Lin is at his best playing alongside multiple shooters. Casspi obviously has played well, but you probably don't want him starting. Besides, Beverley simply is a better fit for how the Rockets are defending pretty much all x-5 screen&rolls, i.e. letting their C drop down and having the guards fight over screens -- something Beverley is elite at. It's absolutely crucial to not get caught up on those screens, especially when going against the best PGs in the league (which on pretty much all opposing teams happen to be their starting PGs). For those two reasons alone, I don't see why rational folks would question Beverley starting games.
Very good catch CH... love your posts now that you deleted PPat from Facebook and moved on. I love the way our style of play has shifted when Lin and Casspi come on... and we still have Howard back there anchoring the defense. So damn impressed with how this rotation has looked.
Really! Whoever keeps doing that should be castrated after he grows a pair. At least this one can be paused... many can't. Very irritating.
It won't be obvious for the first 50 games or so, but the beverley experiment will backfire badly come the last third of the season.
Hey I don't know what it is, or why a lot of the members here want Lin to come off the bench. I guess they believe it's best for business and the team. They could be right though.
I agree that starting Beverley probably makes more sense, however not for the reason you pointed out above. Here are my points: 1. Beverley's on-ball pressure will help the team more than Lin does on the defensive end. 2. Beverley's spotup shooting will serve the team equally well as when Lin plays with the first unit. 3. When starting and frequently having to give up the ball to Harden, Lin's much better point guard handling, rim attack, and distribution would be wasted. Instead, by playing off bench, Lin can control the ball as he wants with his better offensive point guard skill set when playing together with the second unit. 4. By doing this, Rockets get better defense for the first unit and better offense with the second unit. Win win.
If THAT is what you intended, then I suppose you just completely misunderstood (or otherwise read way too much into) the OP. CH was just talking about a pairing of Lin & Casspi in the second unit that purportedly maximized the team's effectiveness during the relevant stretches of games. I don't think he was intimating that Jeremy Lin was incapable of playing with certain players. If anything, he was saying that Lin is MORE effective at playing with a shooting big than Beverley is. I read zero slight to Lin in the OP. If the Beverley "experiment" is failing, I don't think Kevin McHale will agonize over it too long before switching to Lin as his starting PG. Lin coming off the bench has nothing to do with Lin's performance (he's been great in the preseason), so I doubt the coaches would nail him to the bench . . . unless he's just been SOOO effective leading the second unit and the coaching staff doesn't want to mess with that. No offense, but I think that's what EVERYONE has been saying about why Beverley should probably start over Lin. Good analysis, but hardly original. CH (and many others) has made the same valid points before.
I really think Beverly should not be so aggressive on the rebound when playing with D12 and Asik, his job should be getting back on transition defense instead of fighting for rebounds with the twin towers.
Thus, is the dysfunction of the paranoid and insecure lof. Every pro-Beverley opinion is a direct attack on Lin's honor and must be eradicated!
That's why I pulled out the number of the 3-man lineup with O, Lin, and Delfino which is supposedly the best O-Lin-Stretch 4 lineup in last season. And as it turns out, that lineup is just marginally better than the O, Lin, and Smith lineup (+1.5 to +1.4). The other two stretch lineups with PPat and MM are as good as the Smith lineup at best (+1.4 and +0.2). Do I think the Lin-Casspi combination will work very well? Sure. Do I think the coaches believe the Howard-Asik-Lin lineup would not be as effective as Howard-Asik-Beverley (and that's why they decide to make an item out of Lin and Casspi)? No. The stat is there for the coaches to see. O-Lin-Smith is good while O-Bev-Smith was never used last season. If the coaches ever thought O-Bev-Smith would be decent, they would have at least used it. Since O-Bev-DH is just a beefed up version of O-Bev-Smith (that coaches didn't bother to try), is it remotely possible that the coaches would believe O-Bev-DH is better than O-Lin-DH (a.k.a. O-Lin-Smith with better defense)? Highly unlikely.
Only Carl and Jocar (perhaps Bima too) can pull this kind of thread title off without getting the homophobes crying out loud. Try this kind of title ourselves and the thread would definitely be 3 stars or less.
Something the OP got right is that they don't want Dwight+Asik playing with 2 penetrators, that is when spacing becomes an issue. However, that doesn't necessarily say anything about Lin+Casspi, or that they have to play Beverley with Howard+Asik. They just want 1 shooter + 1 penetrator along with the twin towers. Bev+Harden Bev+Lin Lin+Garcia All three of these combinations would work fine with Howard+Asik. For the starting lineup, I think it is clear that Beverley is your PG, but because he is the better fit next to Harden more than anything else. This has nothing to do with Lin+Casspi, or even Howard+Asik. In fact, even though we may start the season going with Howard+Asik, Casspi is a strong candidate to take over as starter eventually. McHale has said repeatedly that they want to play the same as last year, the same style. Twin Towers, as good as it has looked against favorable matchups, is nothing like last year and deviates from our primary style of play. It is situational, not necessarily something you want to ride for extended minutes. To start the game, I think you want to set the tone and establish your team's style first. So if Casspi starts at PF, you can still bring Lin off the bench and play him with several different combinations: Bev/Lin/Garcia/Howard/Asik Lin/Garcia/Parsons/Howard/Asik Bev/Lin/Garcia/Parsons/Asik Bev/Lin/Garcia/Parsons/Howard Of course, there are other combinations that include Casspi, but they aren't necessarily an item more than any other pair. They really have nothing to do with eachother.
This was unnecessarily convoluted, and even worse that you're wording it as questions you're asking yourself. And you can't claim DH is just a beefier Greg Smith without showing your work.
Agreed. Too much emphasis on "Starter" vs "Backup" ...when what really matters in the player combinations that will best help the team against particular matchups. I think that with the current roster McHale will run a 9 man rotation over the regular season, with units like: TWIN TOWERS Beverly/Harden/Parsons/Howard/Asik This works well against teams who are big inside and have a PG that attacks the paint better than he shoots, like the Spurs (Parker/Splitter/Duncan) and OKC (Westbrook/Ibaka/Perkins). ANTI-STRETCH Lin/Garcia/Parsons/Jones/Howard Better against teams with stretch-4s who are minus defenders like Love, Carmelo and Nowitzki, where we need to patrol the perimeter on defence, but have more opportunities to penetrate on offence. SMALL-BALL Beverly/Lin/Harden/Casspi/Asik A very mobile unit who can run slower teams off the floor, whilst maintaining a decent level of rim-protection and rebounding. All of these units are good in different ways. What's really nice is that in case of injury or loss of form we have Brooks, Brewer, D-Mo and Smith ready to step in. That is great depth.
