Zubby wrote:spaceballer wrote:Is the hoops data combined woodson/d'antoni stats for the entire season or for when he was a starter? Because if it's for the entire season, then it's pretty much worthless since I would assume it includes all those garbage minute games he played prior to his breakout.
Yea its for the entire last year.
Not worthless because the only reason I posted those was to show he attacks the rim for most of his fg attempts... in comparison
James Harden attempts 6.5 shots at the rim 60%(lower than I thought)
Lin's at 4.1(56%)
Tony Parker is at 5.5 attempts(67%)
Lin just isnt getting calls when he drives
Garbage time minutes aren't that useful because the level of competition is different. Nonetheless, the recent insider article shows Lin is still getting to the line just as much when Harden is gone, contrary to your point that he's not getting calls (he gets them when Harden isn't there).
Espn Insider wrote:But look what happens to Lin's numbers in the 106 minutes he has played when Harden hits the bench: 19.7 points, 7.5 assists, 5.1 rebounds with an above-average 55.4 TS% and a 17.7 PER.
That's pretty darn good. If those numbers look familiar, there's a reason for it. Check out Lin's per-36 minute stat line in New York last season: 19.6 points, 8.3 assists and 4.1 rebounds. 55.2 TS% and a 19.9 PER.
What we're seeing here is when Lin plays without Harden, his shooting percentages and scoring rates are almost identical to his numbers from last season. In other words, he has shown he can still be the player that took the world by storm last season. But when he plays next to the ball-dominant shooting guard, everything changes. Context, as you can see, is incredibly important.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out why Lin hasn't been a perfect complement next to Harden. They're both masters of the pick-and-roll, but the problem is that they can't run a pick-and-roll at the same time. Because Harden is the better player of the two, Lin usually plays off the ball and lets Harden go to work. But if Lin had a reliable spot-up jump shot, this wouldn't be an issue. Unfortunately, Lin ranks 79th among 121 players in catch-and-shoot efficiency this season, according to SynergySports (minimum 50 such shots). Ray Allen, he is not.
Also, with respect to getting to the line:
Espn Insider wrote:But without Harden on the court? Lin visits the free throw line more than three times as often (6.5 attempts per 36 minutes) while his attempts from beyond the arc essentially doesn't change (3.1 attempts). Lin's averages last season: 7.0 free throw attempts and 2.9 attempts from deep. Mirror images.
Not to beat a dead horse, but the numbers tell us that the only difference between the current Lin and Linsanity appears to be Harden's presence. Now what can the Rockets do about it?
----snip----
It bears mentioning that Lin is still just 24 years old and also coming off offseason knee surgery. He still has room to grow as a professional basketball player, considering he has only 87 games under his belt. Since 1995, only one other player has averaged 15 points, 7 assists, 4 rebounds and 2 steals per 36 minutes in their first three seasons in the league. His name: Chris Paul.
http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/conversa ... my-lin-now
Basically, the coaches don't have the skill to mesh Lin and Harden together. McHale and Sampson aren't able to draw up the type of complicated interweaving offenses with lots of movement, screens, and cutting needed to mesh two slasher guards. Their offense begins and ends with using youth and young legs to outrun the opponent to push the pace for fastbreak points, or falling back on tossing the rock into Harden's hands to iso/pnr while most of the team sits at the 3pt and just watches him for spacing.
I don't know if this is because they didn't have time to do a training camp with Harden to put in offensive sets that maximize the rest of the team, but Sampson and McHale haven't demonstrated any offensive creativity thus far. And they're failing to mesh Lin and Harden.
As the ESPN Insider article's stats indicate, Lin is still getting the same Linsanity stats, but only when Harden is not on the floor, because the coaches can't mesh them.
Maybe it's a failure of the coaches, or it's as lack of time/practice/chemistry, or maybe it's because it will prove impossible to mesh them. If you're a Rockets fan, you'll be hoping it's the first two options, so that you can fix it with an offseason to practice or change Sampson/McHale for a creative offensive coach. If it's the last option, and these two young, unselfish, teamfirst guards really have incompatible playstyles because they're redundant skillsets, then Lin will probably be traded, since a Linsanity Lin (which the ESPN stats say he's still playing as when Harden is not there) probably has more trade value to the team than running him off the bench as a 6th man.
