Lol wtf? First off all 8PPG and 3.5 APG is not a great anything. Second, those numbers per minute are exactly the same as what he's doing now. Did you just convert his numbers for a per 19 minute basis? Third, he's a young player who just finished his first year as a starter. I would seriously hope that this past year will be his worst year in the next five as he should and will continue to improve. There's now way Lin can play significantly worse than he did this year and I think he can be a 16 and 8 guy in two years. But still, it's funny how you say he's garbage but then say he'd be a great bench player by averaging the same numbers per 36 as he did this year.
Actually, Lin's meh season was due to his atrocious start. That could be due to a lot of reasons: new team/chemistry, sudden role change from summer training due to Harden's sudden inclusion, was still healing from his injury, did not work on jumper yet...it was all so bad that no one in the nba really plays that badly. I highly doubt we see that horrid level again. Post all star break, for about 3 months up until the playoffs, he was rather consistent. More consistent than Parsons and about as consistent as any other player on the Rockets <see earlier page graphs>. He averaged about 15 ppg and about 6.5 assists on 44% FG/38% 3 pt shooting. After a whole offseason to practice some more, I can easily see him become a 16-7 guy this season. 16-8 if we get Dwight, i.e., a big man who can actually finish those PnR catches lol.
Lowry got injured, that is why he "disappeared." Dragic played for the Suns and the Suns sucked. You honestly think either Lowry or Dragic would have performed the same way on this Rockets team if they were healthy/not traded? I honestly don't. I consider both Lowry and Dragic better players than Lin, regardless if they are both tier 2 PG's. We didn't see Linsanity because 1) that was never normal Lin but a flash in the frying pan and 2) our offense goes through Harden, not Lin and 3) McHale did not trust Lin and for good reason considering how inconsistent he was. Don't confuse essential with not expendable. If the price is right, even Parsons can be moved. However, it still does not change that Parsons is IMO much more valuable to our team than Lin has shown to be. Did Lin contribute? Yes. Is he good? No, at least not yet. Is he important to our team? Unless he improves a lot more, not at all. PG's like Lin are a dime a dozen.
Huh? Sure I guess in a vacuum Dragic and Lowry could be better. Lowry is such a moot point though -- the TOR pick was instrumental in getting Harden in the trade. What sort of weird alternate universe are we working in where we keep considering Lowry? And now suddenly we're ASSUMING he was healthy vs. Lin this season? Come on, those are never fair comparisons. Hey, TMac is better than Kobe maybe, you know, if we assume he stayed healthy those seasons...injuries are part of the deal. And if we're here to discount injuries, then why not Lin's recovery from his injury in the beginning of the season? And if we're making excuses for Dragic being on a bad team, why not make excuses for Lin having to suddenly change his role on the team last minute due to the addition of Harden? That really threw a wrench into the mix as well. Seems unfair to arbitrarily wave away some faults of Dragic's play due to team chemistry/bad team but not for Lin. And there are PLENTY of players who play on horrible teams and have AMAZING stats. Why didn't that apply to Dragic? Look, don't get me wrong, I DO think Dragic is better than Lin, but you discredit your own point when you use weak arguments. And your last statement is a confusing one, only because I tend to agree that I would MUCH more easily agree to move Lin than Parsons, yet Morey's own internal stats showed Lin is #2 in win shares on our team, behind Harden (other outside analysts have Lin pegged as #3 in win shares this season). Seems rather valuable to me... Lin isn't an amazing PG, but he isn't terrible either, esp. for $8M. He's about the right price, imo, esp. since he'll prob be at minimum a 15-6 player next yr w/ avg. FG and 3 pt shooting. As such, yeah, there are technically plenty of other alternative PGs in the nba that we could get for similar value that would bring similar production. Not sure why we'd need to trade $10 for $10 lol, but yeah, if moving Lin is somehow necessary to get some bigger deal done, we should do it. One thing to keep in mind though -- from Les' perspective, another PG that costs about the same and brings the same production as Lin does not create the same OFF COURT value as Lin. So it'd be more like trading $10 for $10 that also comes w/ $20 on the side We might not care, but Les does.
Just to say it clearly in case anyone has doubts, I am not advocating that we replace Lin with Beverly or trading him (unless we can get better in return). I am simply saying that as an average to above average PG, Lin is not anywhere near essential to this team and easily replaceable as any PG of his current caliber.
1) Yes, I think so. What other assets could we have given at that point that would have been worth nearly as much as a potential top 10 pick? This wasn't like DAL's low top 20 protected pick -- this was a potential top 10 pick. If you don't see the value of that or how hard it is to replace that after we've essentially already given away the bulk of our other assets, then iunno. Can either of us know for sure? Nah, not mind readers, but more likely than not it was a major piece of the deal. I feel like DM might have even mentioned that in an interview, though I don't remember which so I can't cite it. Sorry. As for a comparison of the players, doesn't injury history HAVE to factor in? Especially when one of the two players has such a limited portfolio to compare? If Lin's first few months were like his last few months, he would have had (statistically) a much better season than Lowry did last yr, before he was traded. Lin was still recovering from his injury in the first few months (as stated multiple times by various Rockets FO/coaches), along w/ the team role/chemistry issue (assumed, but pretty obvious assumption), so I feel like it really has to be a fair comparison both ways. That being said, saying Lowry as a player > Lin as a player isn't that absurd. It's probably even correct, assuming Lowry bounces back and Lin does not improve further. For the Dragic <-> Lin swap, you're just guessing now. Who knows? Maybe Dragic would have been just as thrown off by his role on the team suddenly changing w/ Harden now introduced. It wasn't like Dragic's season w/ the Suns was SO amazing that he'd clearly be a huge upgrade over Lin. He's better, but not by that much, and is arguably even worse on defense. Not like their stats or RAPMs are that different. And I wasn't pinning the Sun's failure on Dragic, though maybe the earlier poster was and you were responding to him. Next: so we get to wave away Lin's successes now? You're starting to sound quite biased. I would not have been surprised if you said, "Well Dragic was better than Lin as evidenced by him coming in w/ the most win shares on the Suns." Putting words in your mouth, but that's the tone I'm starting to get from you. You were saying Lin was not important to our team -- I'm saying he was. It wasn't a response to a "who is more valuable, Parsons or Lin" question. 2nd in win shares = important to the team. You will have to quote to me what part of that paragraph had me implying you said Lin was a scrub. I was pretty much just agreeing with you there. I never said you said Lin was terrible, nor did I imply that you thought so. You should probably re-read that paragraph without presumptions. Again, I was just agreeing with your point in that paragraph, if not in a very concise way. Seemed like I was asserting what you were asserting there. On your belief that Parsons is more valuable to the team than Lin, yes I agree. He probably is. I sure as hell would rather move Lin than Parsons, if given the choice only between those two. Finally, on Les, we're talking about what we could get in place of Lin. You're saying he's a dime a dozen and easy to replace. I am saying sure, his skillset and production is pretty easy to replace, but he brings off court benefits that should be factored in. We aren't somehow talking about a much better upgrade that we could hypothetically make under our cap scenario, are we? Or else who the heck would say no? Show me where someone says there is another better option out there that we can readily get but we as fans are shooting down just because we want to keep Lin. I'm sorry, I'm just not understanding your final point. Of course Les wants to win, and of course Les and all of us would want an upgrade at every possible position. That doesn't somehow mean they are available (esp. at a comparable price).
Your first post seemed to be saying more than that, or else I don't think I would have bothered responding to it. Maybe I'm not chasing the quotes far enough up, but I don't see the original comment about Lin being essential to our team. Hope it wasn't some straw man haha.
So why do ppl blame Lin for avg only 13 and 6. Lets be clear. First off, Harden played PG half the time and avg 5+ assists as well. There are only so many assists to go around. Second, Lin parked himself in the baseline corner A lot this year. No true PG does that and just waits for the ball to be swung around the perimeter to him. You can't really blame Lin for not avg more assists when he has to share PG duties with another starter and with a backup. As for Asik's butterfingers, Lin relishes on the drive and dump off to a big as part of his game. You can't tell me that didn't cost Lin an avg of 1 assist a game. If Dwight comes and Lin still only avg 6 assists then yeah we have a problem. As for his 13 pts, inconsistent shooting and his non-aggressive style of play (which you can blame both internal and external factors for) were infuriating to watch. Can't score if you don't shoot. Can't (and shouldn't) shoot if you lack confidence in your shot. I hope Lin is training hard right now and I hope he is clearing his head, figuring out his role on this team, how to maximize that role, and how to be consistently productive. His mental approach to last season was as big a factor for his inconsistency as anything. You have the constant 4th quarter benchings, the mchale discouragements (e.g. the fictitious "9 TOs!!!"), and the perpetual reminders from postgame Asian media of how he's playing differently from his Linsanity days.... Imagine dealing with all those "voices" as he was going up for a shot, all the while also saying to himself "less arc, less arc!". Yikes.
Bledsoe is an Avery Bradley type player imo. Lin has more scoring upside, but you know you're getting a better ball handler and lock down defender in Bledsoe. I also think Lin is a better distributer and has a better basketball IQ. That's why i like Jeremy so much as a 6th man and can't understand why a lot of his fans don't see the merit in that. He could easily be instant offense off the bench. Yeah, the Kyrie stuff was insane.
No one criticizes Lin for his 13 and 6. They criticize him for his poor efficiency, mediocre defense and not taking care of the ball. And to be clear, none of that would matter if he didn't make 8 million dollars a year which could be used this offseason for a significantly better player.
Sorry, but did I equate you with a toddler in my post? The "FACT" is you started 3 threads with a thread title that pretends to be a poll or discussion as a way to bash Lin, and your post history shows nothing related to "Roxlove". Just that you use that moniker to try to pretend that your Lin bashing relates to your love of the Rockets. Those are the FACTs. Anyone is free to search your thread or post history. And the personal attacks? Did I call you a toddler? Did I ask you to wipe your snort off your face? I will say this after your last post. GROW UP
TOs? Yeah, he needs to work on that, but so does our whole team. Mediocre defense? Yeah, he's pretty average there, I hope he gets better, but again true for our whole team. I would rather see our team have a better defensive scheme, over-help less, and not flub defensive rotations as much than just see some improvements in man-on-man defense. But efficiency? Dude is 44% from the field and since the all star break, 38% from 3 pt range. That's not bad efficiency at all. $8M a yr for a PG of his caliber is not great but not turrible either. Does it gimp us a bit this offseason? If he were off the books, how would things change? I guess we'd just be 1 step closer to getting CP3 AND Dwight IF both agreed, but that's like the last piece of an improbable chain of events, and it isn't like he's impossible to move atm (though difficult). In fact, for our SnT scenario of landing both Dwight and CP3, we might actually NEED his salary in order to pull it off, or else we won't be close enough salary-wise to do a SnT for CP3 or Dwight. Go figure, his salary might help. If we aren't trying to snag CP3 + Dwight, not sure what his salary is really holding us back from doing this offseason...
Tushy in pain over Jeremy's pathetic performances? No sweat, there is a cream designed especially for that! (I never tried it personally, since I don't let such trivial matters bother me, but reports from the field by forum posters who tend to get really achy and sore back there over any criticism whatsoever of their favorite player say that this cream simply works wonders.)
This is funny because you were the one calling him childish. I actually do think you're just trolling now haha.
lol did someone actually REP my earlier comment just to sneak in an insult on the rep page? haha I don't mind the trade off
