Exactly, although people here want to see immediate results. It's a 3 year contract. If he under performs the first year, meets expectations the second year, and over achieves the 3rd year, then he's worth his contract.
I want to see him play with reckless abandon. He needs to just drive to the hoop and not worry so much about making the "right" play.
One thing is how much he gets paid. Other thing is is experience and overall game. Sometimes those things are on par. Sometimes, aren't. For instance, you can pay a player more money if he makes your brand more valuable in Asia. Just for that, business wise, if I was a GM, I would pay Lin more than I pay another player with the same skills. Because he would also give me profit from other sources. At the end, the balance could even be credit to the organization i.e. maybe the Rockets are profiting more with Lin than they are paying him. Well, what I mean is that the money you pay a player is not always related to his performance on the floor. So, because of that, I'm not considering his salary when I'm talking about performance. I know, we usually expect much more from the biggest salaries on our team, and we are used to evaluate them harsher than the others with lower salaries. But I'm really starting to approach Lin's situation as if he was a rookie.
Goran Dragic at the age of 24 was averaging 7.4 ppg and 3.1 apg on 42% shooting, including 28% for 3 and 61% from the line for Phoenix through 48 games. Then he was traded to Houston and didn't play well until the 2nd half of the next year. Kyle Lowry at the age of 24 had his breakout year for Houston, but still only averaged 13.5 ppg, 6.7 apg, 4.1 rpg. I'm going to be patient with Jeremy Lin.
I think if he does, he'll be benched and/or yelled at by Sampson. By the way he's playing, you can tell he has been told to hand the ball off to Harden and make him be the playmaker. It's not as simple as Lin doing what he wants to do and being more aggressive. The only thing he can do is go with the flow of the offense which a lot of the times is run through Harden via the coaching staff's directives. This has resulted in a lot more spot up shots this year for Lin. I know the season is young, but the coaching staff need to figure out a way really soon about how to utilize and maximize all the players effectively.
i don't think he's going to get much better playing in this system...but hey, season is far from over. lin is not a good shooter,if anything, that's his biggest weakness, yet he's been relegated into a spot-up shooter due to harden being a ball dominant player. as soon as they let him run high screen, pnr, and let him play more iso - dribble the ball more , his numbers will go up like crazy. ( this kinda brings us back to the point of bigs not being able to set any good screens) why people act as if the system doesn't play a role is beyond me
I've followed Grizzlies the last few years. People will probably not hesitate one second to take a Mike Conley for Jeremy Lin trade here now. But a couple years ago when MC signed the contract, $45m / 5yrs, many laughed that he was overpaid (coming off of 12/5.3/2.4 season) compared to Rajon Rondo's $55m / 5 yrs, one of the best contracts among PG's, (coming off of 11.9/8.2/5.2 season). I think Lin is like what Conley was earlier - a player with great upside, yet still not completely sure what to do. Conley was the fifth scorer and was really shy of taking over games. He had tremendous potentials - probably the best handles in the game today, and sneaky quick. But he lacked the confidence to be a floor general and were bashed by fans and critiques. Even among some Grizz fans, he was considered about the 28th best PG. I was quite glad they made the debatable move of ridding Kyle Lowry to give more room for Conley, and it proved to be a worthwhile investment as Conley has grown into the player he is today. Lowry is a SG in PG body, not a PG, and does not get (as many) wins. For a young team like the Rockets, you need to have patience. It takes years to gel and for the core players to be comfortable playing with each other. Lin's a passer, not a scorer, and can only showcase his worth the better he knows his teammates and understands the game. On the other hand, even if Lin doesn't pan out, he's only on a 3 year contract. What's there to lose playing Lin?
I think he has started to initiate the offense a lot more since the Jazz game. It's just that these past two games all our starters have not hit their shots, except for Harden in this game. Harden seem to only start to initiate it ater we start falling behind and also when we need him to score because we are behind. So they are letting Lin get more involved and not just camped out at the corner like we was a few games ago. Yeah it would be great to run the pnr, high screens, etc. but we don't have the personnel for that because Asik is still learning and also he still has trouble finishing at the rim. We are a young team with a lot of players that are still learning and developing.
So I'm assuming nobody saw Lins potential during draft night but Linsanity suddenly shows his AMAZING POTENTIAL. What if Linsanity was just that 10 games thing. Wait, it prolly is. Never again, he prolly not gonna do what he did ever again or even close. And if I'm wrong, I'll gladly say I'm wrong. Lin is a great defender but when he plays great offensive point guards, he ain't that great. Example: Parker, Lilliard.
I'm disagreeing with your post, you make good points, but Lin is not a scorer? The complaint about him last year was that he shot the ball too much and wasn't a "real pg." Maybe Lin is like Lamar Odom and Ray Felton. He can only play in one city.
Conley is so underrated. He is so consistent but he is helped tremendously by the bigs on his team. Both of them are great offensive players but he is really the cog that keeps that team running.
He doesn't have to play at Linsanity levels to be good. That level was elite. His play under Woodson was fine -- good, solid, etc. But he's not even playing at that level now.
I believe Toracan mentionned that the Lakers were considering drafting him with their late second round pick. Also, while the draft was happenning the Mavs GM called him personally to tell him that though they weren't going to draft him they wanted him on their summer league team. So you're wrong that no one saw his potential. After he performed well in summer league there were several teams that wanted to sign him, like the Lakers, Mavs, and Golden State. BTW I think Lin did play good defense on Lilliard if I remember correctly. Lilliard really starting hiting his cluth shots in OT and Lin wasn't playing in OT. We really lost that game because of Batum, who hit several 3 in regulation to tie us, so I would blame whoever the person guarding Batum more than Lin for their defense.
Lin was playing the first game where Lilliard torched them. The second game, the coach didn't want to put Lin on Lilliard, so he put Parsons.
