He also only shoots around 10x a game, where other 'pgs' take 16 shots or more. You mean to tell me at a 43% clip, lin couldn't get 4 more points if he shot 6 more times? He definitely could. But he is not here to shoot. As a PG what can you do for me passing, scoring, passing and stealing? and that's where lin ranks around 13th among pgs, ahead of Dragic. suddenly, oh wow, lin is not the most horrible player to suit up for the rockets as his not so fans in HOUSTON would lead you to believe. I agree with knote though. He has to improve in the half court game. In the playoffs, teams tend to give maximum effort on transitional D.
I do wonder how much Lin's awful first impression in November and his $8mill paycheck are affecting peoples' perceptions of how good/bad he is or what he can be. Just putting an idea out there to consider. Most people consider Linsanity to be an outlier, but I wonder if anyone sees that month long slump in November as an outlier as well, as to me personally it was a culmination of many factors that probably won't come together again so long as he is a rocket and combined with cold shooting/****ty play from Lin that led to him averaging 10 and 6 on 37% shooting. Since then, 13.4 and 6 on 46% shooting and 34% from 3. Not as good as Lowry or Dragic now, but I think he has been showing that he is as good as they were when they were 24, IMO.
Ah, sorry that I forgot the link. http://www.82games.com/1213/12HOU2.HTM (Jeremy Lin) http://www.82games.com/1213/12HOU4.HTM (Toney Douglas) Still, I'm kind of sad that you actually assumed I was talking about opposing point guards in totality rather than just against Lin.
Personally, I'm kind of sad you lack context when putting up Jeremy Lin's PER. Let me explain. Read it in its entirety, and carefully, please. First, if you look at Jeremy Lin vs Toney Douglas on the Houston Rockets this year, Lin has a -2.3 vs opponent on PER while Douglas has a -6.5. Lin is better than Douglas. I'm sure even you're not contesting that (now ... earlier in the year, can't remember, lots of people seemed to post Douglas is better, even that Douglas should be the playmaker or starter). But what does Lin better than Douglas mean, when he's still below league average, right? Here's the context. And it's so obvious that only people with a certain bias cannot see it. And I'll back it up with numbers. A PG's PER goes down when he's playing with a ball-dominant SG or SF that actually starts the plays for the team, not just finishes them. This is the case with Harden this season (usage rate 29%). It is also the case with pretty much every PG that's ever played next to Kobe (typical usage rate 31%+), or players that have played with Lebron (30%+). Because they ball is in their hands, instead of the PG's. Before you protest ... let's take a look at the data. Steve Nash this season with the Lakers, PER 16.6. Last 3 season average in Phoenix 20.9 PER. Don't say this is due to Nash's injury. Nash has never relied on athleticism or speed. Players next to Kobe in their history - Derek Fisher PER of 8 to 13.7 across many seasons, including a PER of 12 when he was the Laker's 3rd leading scorer on year. Smush Parker 11.7 to 13.4, including a year as the Laker's 3rd leading scorer. All easily below league average. Gary Payton still had a 17.3 on the Lakers in his lone year ... and before you say he was old and washed up by the time he landed on the Lakers, the year before that he still averaged 20pts with PER of ~21.8 (Milwaukee + Seattle). How about playing next to Lebron James? In Miami, Mario Chalmers has PER of 10.7 to 13 across 3 seasons. Chalmers was 13.3 with Wade but without Lebron. Rafer Alston was 8.3 PER. Wade for the two seasons before Lebron was 30.5/28.1, the 3 seasons after Lebron 25.6, 26.4, 23.5. Wade just turned 31 this year. He's NOT that old to be slipping that badly. Mo Williams was probably the only guy to have a better PER playing with a ball-dominating SG/SG, and his PER hit a peak at 17.2 in the 2008-09 season playing alongside Lebron James in Cleveland as the team's 2nd leading scorer with 18ppg, 23.4% usage rate, 14FGA in 35min (vs Lin 10.5FGA in 33min). And there is a naturally better fit with Mo as a 3pt/spot-up shooting PG next to Lebron. Daniel Gibson, Eric Snow, Milt Palacio PERs next to Lebron in Cleveland? Ranged from 8.1 to 11.8. Steve Kerr's PERs next to Jordan were from 13 to 15 depending on which season, BJ Armstrong's 14-15 (including the 1994 season where he was named the East starting all-star), and Ron Harper's 12-14. That is what happens when you're playing with a ball-dominating/superstar SG/SF who is playing more of a PG role. The only guy that played with Lebron, Kobe or MJ who had above league-average PERs was Mo Williams, and he was the 2nd leading scorer of the team with 3.5 FGA/game higher than Lin and ~3.5% higher usage rate than Lin, playing the spot-up/3pt-shooting PG role which he is better suited to than the more traditional PG role. The rest of them? Mostly not even close to Lin's territory. 8 to 14 PER. And Lin's PER for the last 25 games or so is probably around 16 territory, after the slow start (factoring injury, and the way he was used before, in an extreme way). And Lin's PER last year in New York? A very solid 20, with usage rate of 28%. A 20 PER is borderline all-star according to Hollinger, who devised the PER stat. See (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_efficiency_rating) So if Hall-of-Famer (HOF) Nash loses ~4 in his PER playing next to Kobe, HOF Payton also ~4 next to Kobe, HOF Wade ~4 next to Lebron, and all of the PGs that played next to Lebron/Kobe/MJ (except Mo Williams) had below league average PER of 15 (including one who was even voted the Eastern Conference starting all-star in one year), and many of them dip to the 8 to 12 range ... ... does this provide enough context about how Lin is playing next to Harden who plays a role more similar to the ball-dominating Kobe/Lebron/Jordan (not saying as good) from the SG position? PER is not perfect, and you can't adjust it simply for usage rate. But there is a clear correlation. Lin has lost ~5.3 in his PER this year from last. I would say it is closer to 4 assuming he didn't have that 'amazing' of a 7 game stretch where the Knicks were depleted by injury and he had to do literally everything. Let's just assume Lin was a 18 PER guy in New York under normal circumstances and ~15.5 in Houston (taking out say the 1st 12-15 game stretch where we know he still wasn't fully recovered from his injury), I think it comfortably signals that if Lin wasn't playing with a ball-dominating SG in Harden, he's probably still be a 18-20 PER PG. Still not convinced? Still don't think you're biased? Well, we're 8th in the Western Conference standings? We'd probably be 3rd in the East. Anyone 5th to 9th in the West would probably have home court advantage if they played in the East. So we're probably say a top 10-12 team in a league of 30 teams, but guess what? Out of our top 8 players, only James Harden has a PER that is materially above league average 15. Patterson is next at 15.4. Everyone else in our top 8 by minutes is below 15. So assuming an NBA roster is typically 8 man deep, which means there are 240 players with material minutes in the NBA this season, the Rockets are probably the 10th to 12th best team with only 1 person that is above average out of 240 players. Do you think that makes sense? Let's not even make this Lin-related. Does it make sense that nobody in our top 8 by minutes outside of Harden has a PER that is materially higher than the league average in a team that is probably the 10th to 12th best team in the NBA? So I hope that analysis above is CONTEXT enough for you to not take one number and dump it on a guy like it is a thorough analysis. Having the ball taken out of a player's hands has a bigger impact to a PG's PER than a PF or Center's PER. Duh ... does that not sound obvious to you?
Well, I kind of agree. If people can't see that Hall of Famers like Nash, Payton and Wade can lose about 4 in their PER when they have to give up the ball to a more ball-dominating player, and Lin faces a very similar situation, then I guess it is hard to debate You don't even have to add 4 to Lin's PER. Lin's around 16 since he recovered from injury fully (let's say 1st game against NY Knicks, or even the game before that when he started to look better), and if you add 2 for adjustment to usage and shot attempts etc, you get 18. It's not as if Lin is at 11 PER and no matter what adjustment you do, he won't be anywhere near average or above average. I understand there's no science that says Lin will be 18 to 20 PER without Harden, but at least give some benefit of the doubt ti a PG that has the ball taken out of his hands for a big part of the season. Especially when there is precedence (as I've shown), and the context applies here with Lin as well (question is just to what degree).
tl;dr. Seriously, this originally came from a post where I responded to someone who claims that Yao shuts down opposing star PGs. So I point out that opposing PGs have not been shut down against Lin. I have no idea how you somehow extrapolated something so long from such a simple point. I don't feel like making a tl;dr post in respond, so I guess we'll just agree to disagree.
From what i've seen so far this season, not being a homer or anything, i'd choose Jeremy Lin. Some may argue that the other two are better right now but Lin has one thing those other two will never have.. Lin's magic and charisma.
Mike_Lu and Meh, I really enjoyed both of your analysis. Keep up the good work. By the way, Mike_Lu, that analysis you just did provided great insight.
Wow excellent post I actually learned something on Clutchfans. Repped. If that doesnt convince people then nothing will.
My apologies if I overdid the reply. Just treat it as a separate post on how Lin is better than what his PER suggests.
A similar analysis can be said for Lin underperforming on assists. He's averaging ~6 APG, which seems pretty low for a pass-first, play-making PG (and yes, that is his role right now, especially when Harden is on the floor with him). But he's sharing that role with Harden, who also averages ~6 APG. None of the top assist PGs in the league have anyone with higher than 4 APG on their team. Ricky Rubio, of all PGs, is the same as Lin: he has "low" assists at 6 APG, but it's because he shares the backcourt with another playmaking guard. Meanwhile Goran Dragic has that same 6 APG but no other teammate who is sharing the load with him. He is posting similar numbers to Lin now even though he's in the same situation Lin was a year ago, basically having to do everything himself because his team is so moribund. If Lin didn't have the luxury of having a better player as his SG to share possessions with, his stats would probably have at least +6 PPG and +3 APG.
If you ask yourself what we need out of the PG position next to Harden... - 3 point shooting - Vocal leadership - Ability to create offense with Harden out - Not being ball-dominant when in the game with Harden - Defense and heady play - Overall toughness Lowry, if he put his locker-room issues aside, would be a near-perfect fit with Harden.
you are assuming that it is simple for someone to put away thier ego... but that is not the case... it is actually easier for lin to improve his 3pt shot ( as we already have seen dramatic improvements on his 3pt shot over the last month) than lowry to put aside his ego...
No it is not, Lowry was the starting pg playing with kevin martin as his sg and Dragic was the backup, very different.
