Should Lin come off the bench?

[MaxRider]

the problem is Harden because he usually is the ball stopper and ball movement stop completely when he has the ball
i'm not sure different coach will change it
he can man up and bench him and what will the owner and fans think?
typical fans will just blame the coach for not playing the star
but truth is he's ruined the play
he did it all the time
sometime his shot is falling so it doesn't make him look bad
the Clippers game really show how he is

[13th Man]

First full game with Beverley as the starter.

Beverley 1-10, 5 fouls, 3 pts.
Lin 5-8, 16 pts, 2 steals, 2 blocks.

Rockets lose to the Lakers. Lin gets yelled at by players and assistant coaches after the game.

As I've predicted, McHale is forcing an unfortunate and unnecessary situation, it's going to get more awkward as this season progresses.

[Flash88]

The game-winning shot should be the fault of Beverley. He needs to switch once Nash set the screen on Lin. You can see Lin yelling at someone right after the play.

[orange_juice32]

Yell at Dwight, yell at Harden, yell at Beverley, but please don't put this game on Lin.

[Ettorefm]

Enjoy your beloved Beverley. 1-10 with 5 fouls. Lin 16 points.

[cksdayoff]

First full game with Beverley as the starter.


Rockets lose to the Lakers. Lin gets yelled at by players and assistant coaches after the game.

wait wut? If everyone knows it wasn't Lin's fault, why is he getting yelled at?

[No35]

First full game with Beverley as the starter.


Rockets lose to the Lakers. Lin gets yelled at by players and assistant coaches after the game.

wait wut? If everyone knows it wasn't Lin's fault, why is he getting yelled at?

Because McHale knows that it's his head on the block if he falls into disfavor in the court of the Bearded King and his Wonder Woman.

[Mirjalovic]

#saveLin

seriously, Lin is better player and playmaker compared to Beverley, hes so underrated on this board. just stop it if you dont have enough bball IQ to see his ability.

[Peregrine01]

Would rather see Lin traded. He's playing on a team with no consistent rotation, whose coach doesn't hold its star players accountable, and whose star players don't appear to give much of a sh*t other than getting their's.

[litex]

Yelling at Lin, after Harden once again ignored every play the coaches called in the 4th quarter and just played terrible hero ball...its just pathetic.

It should be extremely clear to everyone that Patrick Beverly is not a starter calibre point guard. No, not even in the Derek Fisher mode. He is a situational energy guy who can play good D for short periods and occasionally hit wide open shots. Thats it. He can't score, he can't run an offense, and when forced to play heavy minutes and take a larger offensive role even his defense suffers. When Beverly and Harden are the Rockets backcourt, the offense looks stagnant and terrible. The benefits of having Lin run the 2nd unit are more than offset by having a starting unit with truly horrific ball movement. The Rockets only came back into that game in the first place because Lin got the offense going in the 3rd quarter, and they lose because of Harden's selfishness and Dwight's inability to hit free throws, yet somehow Lin takes the blame.

Just trade the guy already. Him and Asik both. Its obvious they aren't wanted there, and everyone involved would be happier if they shipped them out to another team.

[Zubby]

Starting Lin doesn't give the Rockets a win yesterday... everyone on the made multiple bad plays.
The game was not lost on that last play everyone contributed to that L.
It will take time which they have plenty of to get the Asik/Dwight thing to work.

[KungFuJoe]

Starting Lin doesn't give the Rockets a win yesterday... everyone on the made multiple bad plays.
The game was not lost on that last play everyone contributed to that L.
It will take time which they have plenty of to get the Asik/Dwight thing to work.

It's kind of hard to say "everyone contributed to that L" when Dwight went 5 for 16 from the line and they lost by 1 point.

[No35]

Starting Lin doesn't give the Rockets a win yesterday... everyone on the made multiple bad plays.
The game was not lost on that last play everyone contributed to that L.
It will take time which they have plenty of to get the Asik/Dwight thing to work.

Everyone as in Dwight's "we," right?

Let me state this step-by-step so that even a troll who thinks Westbrook should thank Beverley for drilling his knee can understand:

It was Dwight's blown rotation that conceded the open 3. Lin started on Blake, Beverley started on Nash, and Howard on Gasol. Blake ran off 2 screens (I know it must be difficult to pick up for Houston fans because they have no idea what a designed play looks like). First screen was Nash bear hugging Lin, meaning that by rotation Beverley had to switch onto Blake. However, he was being picked off by Pau, Dwight's man, meaning that it was Dwight's responsibility to switch onto Blake, but he didn't do this fast enough and gave up the open 3.

This loss is on Dwight on all levels.

[NothingButLuck]

It's the Twin Towers. It doesn't even improve the D by much (1.022 PPP against), and they are getting killed on the offensive end (0.881 PPP) having two centers with limited offensive arsenal out there clogging the lane for the driver in the starting lineup, in this case, Harden. This is a plain disaster. I'm just hoping there's multiple contending teams out there that want Asik to drive his price up.

[Zubby]

Starting Lin doesn't give the Rockets a win yesterday... everyone on the made multiple bad plays.
The game was not lost on that last play everyone contributed to that L.
It will take time which they have plenty of to get the Asik/Dwight thing to work.

It's kind of hard to say "everyone contributed to that L" when Dwight went 5 for 16 from the line and they lost by 1 point.

Yea Dwight is a bad ft shooter we know that, there was a stretch of plays where
Harden threw 3 bonehead passes which should of been easy assists. This guy can't throw a lob to safe his life.
Bev missed tons of open shots.
Lin got in a stretch where he threw 2-3 bonehead passes(similar to Harden), and on an easy 2v1 break he greedily took it 1v1 instead of making the easy pass to Harden. That played scared the **** out of me cause Lin pretty much came down on his face, and he was obviously shaken up cause he missed both fts. This was in the middle of Rox going 0-7 from the line.
Parsons inbound to Dwight.

That is McHale's top 5 so yea anyone one of them don't make those mistakes and you could say they don't lose by 1.

That game was not lost on one play.

[KungFuJoe]

Starting Lin doesn't give the Rockets a win yesterday... everyone on the made multiple bad plays.
The game was not lost on that last play everyone contributed to that L.
It will take time which they have plenty of to get the Asik/Dwight thing to work.

It's kind of hard to say "everyone contributed to that L" when Dwight went 5 for 16 from the line and they lost by 1 point.

Yea Dwight is a bad ft shooter we know that, there was a stretch of plays where
Harden threw 3 bonehead passes which should of been easy assists. This guy can't throw a lob to safe his life.
Bev missed tons of open shots.
Lin got in a stretch where he threw 2-3 bonehead passes(similar to Harden), and on an easy 2v1 break he greedily took it 1v1 instead of making the easy pass to Harden. That played scared the **** out of me cause Lin pretty much came down on his face, and he was obviously shaken up cause he missed both fts. This was in the middle of Rox going 0-7 from the line.
Parsons inbound to Dwight.

That is McHale's top 5 so yea anyone one of them don't make those mistakes and you could say they don't lose by 1.

That game was not lost on one play.

I understand that a game's outcome is dependent on 48 minutes worth of team basketball.

But there comes times when exceptions are to be made. 5/16 on free throws, losing by ONE point?

Yeah...I'm making an exception. Dwight lost the game.

[HotRocks34]

I was concerned about this with Beverley, that when and if he began to face starters rather than backups, that some of his limitations might come more to the forefront.

Got to give him a bit of a break, though. He's probably still trying to find his groove after the stomach injury. And Houston still may keep him as starter, kind of like how OKC had Sefalosha as the starter even though Harden was the better player.

Lin is playing incredibly well. His PER (19.0) is second best on the team behind Harden's (24.5), and it is about #53 in the entire NBA (something like 435 players or so) for players who have played more than 100 minutes so far this year. Lin's PER is #10 among all point guards in the NBA who have played more than 100 minutes this season.

Lin is currently leading the Rockets with 1.736 Points Per Field Goal Attempt. He is 5th in the NBA in that statistic. Even though his Usage Rate is down to 19.9%, he's still averaging 18 points Per 36 as well as 6.9 FTA PER 36.

He is first on the Rockets with 4.8 assists Per 36. He is tied with Omri Casspi for the best Three Point Field Goal Percentage (43.8%) on the team.

Here's how Beverley's and Lin's stats compare Per 36:

JL --- 18/2/5 with 10 FGA and 55% FG and 44% TH and 6.9 FTA and 1.9 ST and 3.4 TO. PER = 19.0
PB --- 10/4/3 with 11 FGA and 35% FG and 27% TH and 0.5 FTA and 0.5 ST and 1.5 TO. PER = 09.3

Additionally, in the two full games (Bev hurt in CHA game) in which he has played, Beverley has an inferior Defensive Rating to Lin.

So, the thought for starting Beverley, I think, was to get better defensive and better three-point shooting. That's not happening right now. His turnover rate is better than Lin's, but when you look at the net number from (AST - TO), the figure is about the same (1.5 for PB versus 1.4 for JL).

The real issue comes in the Net Ratings (Player ORTG - Player DRTG) for each player on and off the court. Meaning, how is the (Team ORTG - Team DRTG player on the court) - (Team ORTG - Team DRTG player off the court). Here's what those figures look like for Lin and Bev.

Lin = +5.2
Bev = -0.1

In other words, the team has been slightly better this year with Beverley off the court while it is better with Lin on the court.

It's early in the season, of course. And hopefully Beverley's play will rise as he more fully heals up from his injury. But it's clear Lin has improved in shooting, defense and turnovers. And he's putting up numbers as not only a starting PG in the league, but one of the better starting point guards in the league.

If these trends continue, the Rockets coaching staff will have some difficult decisions to make. Do they keep Beverley as the starter with Lin playing so much better? Do you need Lin's scoring and playmaking punch off the bench even if he is clearly playing better than Beverley?

We'll see. There appears to be a lot of drama going on in Houston right now. So, it will be interesting to see how things shake out as the season wears on.

[No35]

Just checking the latest synergy defensive PPP stats

Lin - 64th - 0.79 PPP - 33.3 FG% (16/48)
Beverley - 182nd - 1.26 PPP - 55.2 FG% (16/29)

As I said before, aggressive ball pressure D is fool's gold.

[KungFuJoe]

Beverly has played all but a game and a half so far.

Kinda premature to be talking about defensive ratings at this point...especially since he's actually back on the court earlier than he should have been.

[HotRocks34]

Just checking the latest synergy defensive PPP stats

Lin - 64th - 0.79 PPP - 33.3 FG% (16/48)
Beverley - 182nd - 1.26 PPP - 55.2 FG% (16/29)

As I said before, aggressive ball pressure D is fool's gold.

I told people on another site that I could no longer blindly accept that Beverley was a better defender than Lin is. And after I heard the "Beverley would have slowed down Chris Paul" stuff, I did more research and came to the conclusion that Beverley as Magical Unicorn Perimeter Shut Down Defender was looking like, well, a Magical Unicorn that may not really exist.

Bev's steals per 36 is about 4 times less than Lin's rate. Lin has always been a ball hawk, relatively speaking, but now he is starting to put that skill together with more disciplined and better defense overall. He was a Plus Defender in New York, according to xRAPM stats, and he appears to be headed back towards that distinction again.

I don't want to be too hard on Beverley here. He's still relatively new to the NBA, is not used to starting, and is coming back from injury. So I expect we will be seeing improved things from him shortly.

There was someone on ESPN who said he thought Beverley would win Defensive Player Of The Year this season. That prediction is looking laughable, regardless of how much Beverley can improve as the year rolls on.