I think Lin has high bb iq. i mean, he flourished in d'antoni's system with essential a bunch of role players/scrubs and was basically the on court coach of that team. he def knows basketball. but i think what will hinder him the most is his pg skill level. he has basic pg skills, and if he doesn't improve them his bb iq just will not translate on the court.
I agree with you that Lin has high BB IQ. Just hearing about his reasoning for that last shot in Toronto just shows you how he is thinking and analyzing the situation and choosing the take the best shot in that situation. He's also broken down defenses often, one example is the game against the Wizards, they were running the same pick and roll play over and over again because they knew that the Wizards had trouble defending that play. As he said he's all about trying to make plays where it gives you the best shot to take.
great read.i thought it will be similar to parsons' q & a but it's nice friedman do it in a different approach.nice 2 see that he works on one to one defense and lazy passes.hope it translates to court. I was hoping he says more about the rookies,perhaps it's too soon to tell. Great to know about Asik's offense. btw where's asik q & a ?i remember he's heavily accented but at least he could speak english. just a side note,it seems like asik is dominating in practice,just guessing based on d-mo's q & a and morey tweet.may be a wild guess tho. i hope we can see some video footages from them soon.
I don't see him having the personality to be a coach. He keeps to himself too much to be after a whole team. To be a good coach you need to know more than x's and o's. I think we have to differentiate "high bball IQ" players from intelligent/competent ones. I wouldn't classify Lin as someone with a high bball IQ. It's very likely that most of the stuff he's talking about was part of the "homework" he was given by the team. He's intelligent enough to understand it and competent enough to put it into action, but the holes in his game are pretty elementary (like his inability to go left and same plane passes). High Bball IQ players are usually pretty well rounded with their fundamentals.
Lin was captain of his college team and I think his high school as well. He's very outgoing and integrates the entire team when given the chance. You saw how he was able to direct his team when needed too. So while he's a private person, he definitely has what it takes to be a good coach. Also, for me, a "high bball IQ" is someone who can learn form his mistakes but has good instincts. Lin has very good instincts. The fact that he has holes in his game is due to a lack of training specific skills. But he knows what he has to do, just that he hasn't practiced enough to do it competently yet.
Arthur is right. The term high BBIQ is such a malleable descriptor. Such a subjective phrase to be honest. One person can think one player has a high BBIQ and another person can think the opposite.
I agree. Last year, you had people like Hubie Brown and Walt Frasier praising Lin for his BBIQ and then you'd get people like Larry Brown and SAS calling him a marginal player or back up pg.
Low Bball IQ players who can't go left or pass usually do not dominate the league in historic proportions. Overblown.
I'm sure thorough analysis of data would give us some indication about some of the aspects that we generally think constitute "bball iq" but I don't know enough about advanced stas to know which would apply (maybe someone w/ deeper knowledge/insight could explain?). Deeper analysis of tape might be necessary.
Usually when you are in the public eye as much as Lin is your weaknesses become overblown. It is easy to look for negatives when that is all you are looking for. I always laugh when they talk solely on his flaws because despite all of that he was able to average 18 & 8. Imagine how good he could be if he "could go left". It has become popular to say he is overrated that he is in fact now underrated which is kind of insane. Almost like he was to successful. If he had averaged maybe 15 & 8 or 15 & 6 and not played so well he would have gotten a fairer shake I think. Odd that society is "punishing" someone for performing above expectations lol. Don't know if it is race, the undrafted thing, the hype. I think it is a multiplicity of factors but it is quite fascinating to watch society grapple with there preconceived notions & social constructs being shattered.
Leading the team as a point guard just isn't the same as coaching a whole team. You've got to manage much more off the court stuff as a coach. If it were very similar, you'd see more point guards becoming coaches, especially the better ones. Not sure i'd describe Lin as very outgoing...he's social, but he doesn't go after that leadership role and voice his opinion as much as other ex-players who went into coaching. I agree that someone with a high bball IQ will learn from their mistakes, but again, these are elementary holes. High IQ players also have to look ahead. Surely this past season wasn't the first time he ever had those turnovers and didn't go left well. A high IQ player would have practiced those things early in their career, like in college, and not just because they needed it to do well, which Lin didnt, but because it's an important fundamental part of the game that would surely be exposed early and often in their pro careers. You'd think a player who was not a lock to be drafted would have focused on things like that almost exclusively before the draft. I never said he had a low bball IQ. He could have a decent understanding, without it being exceptional or high. I said he was intelligent and competent, so i'm not sure why'd you'd assume I was calling his bball IQ low.... He dominated the league? C'mon now, he had a great stretch of about 10 games or so and the rest of the season he played just well. He couldn't/wouldn't go left. If there was ever a weakness in a pg that people should talk about, it's that. It's a HUGE weakness to have at his position. Its not like complaining about a SG who shoots "only" 36% from three. It's like a SG who doesn't take ANY threes. You're basically shrinking the court for the defense. You cant have that from a spot that's perimeter-oriented. Yes, he was underrated. Yes, he's got the physical and mental tools to be a consistently good player, maybe very good, but there's a reason why he went undrafted, was cut twice, and almost a third time before stumbling into an opportunity. He's got significant holes to fill.
I want to know why Rajon Rondo shot 50% FT because shooting was one of the first things you learnt since touching basketball. You would think he would surely practice this fundamental part of the game early in his career or at least after being exposed after years in college and nba? Not to mention this was the thing people criticized him since he entered the draft. How could Rondo not recognize this weakness of himself and not focus on it? Or Rondo must have a low basketball IQ too? Oh, and if Lin could average 18/7 as a nba starter despite having "elementary holes" of turnovers and not going left, what did it say about the level of his competition? How good would he be without those "elementary holes"? Not to mention it wasn't like he wasn't successful in high school, college and actually all his life despite those "elementary holes".
In your haste to defend Lin you failed at reading comprehension. Ive already explained i never said or implied his bball iq was low. That being said, for a pg, dribbling is much easier skill to master than shooting. Shooting can be a problem at any position, but notice how dribbling usually gets worse the bigger the player is. Not sure what your point is. I already said he was good enough to succeed at the lower levels with those weaknesses. My point was that he didn't foresee the need to focus on them exclusively to increase his chances of being drafted. Understand i'm not calling him a scrub. Not saying he doesn't have skills or potential. Not saying he won't do well. all i'm saying is that several NBA coaches and scouts can't all be wrong. If he didn't have elementary holes in his game he wouldn't have been passed around so much. The good thing is he should improve on them, if all that's needed is for him to focus on them and practice. However, if he already has dedicated an adequate amount of time and effort and he just can't "get" those things, wrll, then we're fckd.
1st, you're lying when you said Lin never go left when there were hard evidence to say otherwise. 2nd, yes there is a way of being successful despite having a weakness. Dwyane Wade almost never takes 3s as a SG and last I heard he's quite successful. 3rd, you think there is "a reason" the Rockets never drafted Lin and cut Lin but now the Rockets signed him back although "that reason" still existed. How dumb was this organization?
Do you know how many people since the 1985-86 season (the past 27 years) have, over 26 or more consecutive games, averaged on a per 36 minute basis as many points, assists and steals as Lin did last season? 19. You might have heard of some of them: Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Isiah Thomas, Clyde Drexler, Gary Payton, Jason Kidd, Kevin Johnson, Mark Price, Baron Davis, Sam Cassell, Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, I think you get the picture. So yes, "dominated" is an appropriate term. Do you have any evidence to back up the assertion that Lin "couldn't/wouldn't go left"? I've seen Synergy stats that I unfortunately can't find at the moment that said that Lin went to his left less often and was somewhat less effective than going to his right, but I recall it was far from "couldn't/wouldn't".
It's often said that "you are only as good as your competition" and "necessity is the mother of invention", and I think they're both applicable sayings in Lin's case. While Lin did play against marquee NCAA players from time to time during his time at Harvard, the players that Lin scrimmaged against during practice were probably below his level. Thus, he probably didn't need to develop his game as much to be effective. Add to that how Harvard's basketball program might not have had some of the better basketball minds and how some of Harvard's basketball staff might not have taken Lin's intent to play in the NBA seriously (and spent less effort on him than someone being groomed for the NBA), and we have some reasons why Lin was so raw coming out of college. Now, should he have worked on his problem areas? Of course. However, like I said before, necessity might not have called for that at the time, which is why quite a few dominant college players and even some of the current great talents of the league were shell-shocked when making the transition to the NBA. I think a better analysis of Lin would take into account how he improved from his rookie year. While he seemed promising during his stint with the Warriors, he wasn't good. This wasn't helped by his short leash and frequent trips back to the D-League and back. During the offseason, he improved his finishing (a lot) and his shooting (a bit), and he was able to become the player we saw with the Knicks. He has quite a bit of work ahead of him with regards to his skills, but he's a student of a game that's busily doing his supplementary homework. Based on his track record, he'll improve himself again, and with that increase in his skills, so will his feel for the game and basketball IQ. But he did go left. I'd liken it more to a Shooting Guard that shoots 32% from 3-Point range (happens to be his 3-Point percentage last season, haha), to play off of your example, being that he can go left, but that it's below average and not a strength. It's definitely a significant issue for him if he wants to be a complete Point Guard, but it's something he's addressed and should become better at now that he's focusing on it. I agree totally that he has holes to fill. Like I've said before, he was raw before and still is, but there is a good reason for optimism about his improvement.
He got passed on because he played in a weakass college conference. Not because of his lack of skill. He played in a weak conference because he could not get into a D1 or D2 despite leading his team to a D2 Northern California title in high school. A first-team All-State and Northern California Division II Player of the Year should easily get you recruited to D2 or D1 schools imo. He couldn't even get recruited to Stanford which was so close to his high school. Its not a surprise no one was interested. How many good Asian nba players have there ever been. Only Yao and he was an anomaly. A 7'5 center with a great shooting touch.
When you say that he doesn't have fundamental skills and has significant holes in his game, to me, that screams average to below average. Using words like significant, holes, lack of fundamentals, well, that's usually what you associate with people who aren't very good at what they do. So I can see why posters who like Lin more than you do are disagreeing with you. Everyone has bias. There are people on real gm who say that Rondo is an overrated PG, and they back it up with stats. Also, yes, coaches and scouts can be wrong. Some have publicly admitted their initial judgement/assessment on Lin was wrong, including Mchale and Morey.
It's quite obvious Lin has high bball iq. It is quite obvious he still made some elementary mistakes and has flaws in his game. Why? First, it's not like other rookies or even seasoned players don't have flaws. I mean Ariza still can't dribble, Rubio (despite being a pro at 15) still can't shoot, Rondo still can't shoot, Terrence Ross cannot create much off the dribble etc etc ... Lin's flaws are just overblown. I mean, if Lin's left hand impacted him so detrimentally, and it was quite well scouted, how did he post those crazy iso numbers? Surely it would've been easy to shut down a guy with one hand and one direction ... Second, could it simply be because Lin has not had enough game experience for his bball iq to totally shine through? McHale said to Royce White that a lot of the passes he made in college will not work in the NBA, because people are more athletic, longer, and smarter, and it will take time to iron out what works and what doesn't. In Lin's case, before the game against the Nets, his total body of experience in the NBA is probably similar to a first round pick rookie that played maybe 15-20 games, and that gets 15-20min/game. And Lin got time only in blowouts, and prior to that, he was mostly playing in the Ivy League against even weaker competition than typically Division I college teams. So is it fair to give Lin, a PG, with so much possessions in his hand, some time to get comfortable in the NBA, without calling these issues (going left, turnovers) 'irreparable flaws', and reasons why he will not 'justify his contract' (mentioned frequently in other threads), or signs that he doesn't have as high a bball iq as some may suggest. I mean, check out Steve Nash's first 3-4 years in the NBA. The play and stats also would not suggest he is one of the smartest NBA players in history.
He had a stretch of games that never before occurred in the history of the league. So yes, I would call that dominating. This isn't close to reality. For sure, there was a big reason why those things happened. But unless he goes through some Michael Jacksonesque transformations, it's going to be pretty darn hard for him to "fill that hole".
