Super Lintendo: The Jeremy Lin Thread

[leeramundo]

There's no way we're starting 0-6. The team's coming together very nicely and very quickly.

[BigSlam]

My favourite play of the game today was the Lin no look bounce pass to Cody on the high side after Lin pulled down the defensive board and lead the break.

Not only was it the right pass to make, he gave it to a 7 footer in rhythm and on the move at chest height putting him in the perfect position to continue the drive.

It also rewarded a big for running the floor hard.

There was so much to like about that play.




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[Vae Victus]

Laker's fan and huge fan of Lin here following up on him. Was estactic we got him last season but then turned to rage as we proceeded to piss him away with Byron Scott's (Please Use More Appropriate Word) sets and Kobe's ball hoggery. Then the full on tank came and Lin got benched for a scrub like Ronnie Price and then rookie Clarkson (which is more understandable at least). Drafting D'Angelo Russell obviously meant we didnt value Lin and thus he was tossed aside (Okafor was right THERE for ****'s sake). Sadly i think Lin will have better seasons than Russell over the next 3 as i've been duly unimpressed by him. I wonder if the Lakers management will put 2 and 2 together when they notice less yellow faces in the crowd, cuz i sure as hell didnt see as many when i went to games the year previous, but hey they've never been accused of intelligence with the moves they've made lately.

Personally i thought Lin was stupid for signing with you guys as you dont have the right personnel to run a more free style offense (not to mention Charlotte, no offense, as a Chinese-American the South is one of the areas i've put far down on my list of places to live in). Also further pissed he signed for a pittance as he now has like zero leverage with ya'll if you decide to jerk him around (similar to my Lakers although we mind boggledly treated a player paid 15 mil like complete ****, even when he was doing his absolute BEST to be a team player). However seems like Lin's happy and the team is playing like a TEAM, which is exactly what he wanted and the complete OPPOSITE of the complete selfish, ball hoggery, douce baggery bull he had to endure last year on my Lakers.

Cheering Lin and you guys on and i hope you make some noise in the playoffs.

And boy, does he make some pretty passes. You guys are gonna enjoy his unselfish play, heart, hustle, tenacity, and lack of ego. Also when he plays like ****, be sure to put him on blast, he's Taiwanese/Chinese, he's totes used to it and i'm sure his parents has given him much more abuse in the past. Personally I dont EVER want him comfortable, but always striving to become better and play with a chip on his shoulder to prove all the doubters wrong. Some have accused him that he signed in Charlotte to run away from the big lights and pressure, if true, then i hope his bitch pansy ass fails cuz that's not how **** needs to be done for a minority to succeed in America.

As you can see, this is just a taste of how some of his rabid fandom sees him

[steady]

I respect your opinion brother, but personally i would like nothing better than for Lin to finally lay down the burden of living up to the expectations of fans and the burden of disproving the doubters. He's going to strive for excellence and work like hell anyway because it's in his DNA. I'd love for him to just get to play for the joy of the game for once - and not be responsible for bringing Linsanity every night

[lin is ok]

Nah, no need to baby lin he is gamer. This is a big year for him.

[RealHusky]

This will be a huge year for Lin.

Lin is finally playing in a system and a coach who can see all of his strengths. He will finally be playing on a TEAM that actually is a TEAM. Lakers experience was a disaster and Lakers will continue to suck as long as they got Kobe jacking up 30 shots a game shooting at 33%. Lin said last year in LA was the toughest year of his career so far. Bryon Scott sucks as a coach. I fully expect he will be fired soon. Houston started good but then they got ball hog Harden. It is hard to shine when everything funnels towards one guy. I honestly don't believe those types of teams relying on 1 or 2 superstars will ever work. Spurs is what basketball should be about and Charlotte can do a lot worse than playing like that. I also like the Warriors. They also play like that and that's how basketball should be played.

Charlotte might not seem ideal at the start, but it looks like a great fit for Lin and the Hornets. It seems Lin finally got some good teammates like Kemba, Al, and others that genuinely want to play as a team. There does not appear to be any superstar wannabe ego in the group so that's a plus. I really do believe this could be a breakout year for Charlotte and Lin. Lin fans got a lot to look forward to this year, finally.

[spaceballer]

The White House has tweeted a JLin Video with advice on bullying:

[tweet]https://twitter.com/WhiteHouseAAPI/status/654661431837593600[/tweet]
https://twitter.com/WhiteHouseAAPI/status/654661431837593600

This isn't the first time that Jeremy has been asked by the White House to be in one of their videos.

[spaceballer]

Whistle Sports congratulates JLin on passing half a million youtube subscribers:

[tweet]https://twitter.com/WhistleSports/status/654663647046713345[/tweet]

Whistle Sports is the crossplatform digital sports media company, with investors Derek Jeter and Peyton Manning, that gave Jeremy an equity stake of undisclosed size in return for the right to air his youtube videos on the Playstation Network and other platforms and to continue to create original content for them. They raised $28M in additional funding at the beginning of the year, I believe.

[13th Man]

This will be a huge year for Lin.

Lin is finally playing in a system and a coach who can see all of his strengths. He will finally be playing on a TEAM that actually is a TEAM. Lakers experience was a disaster and Lakers will continue to suck as long as they got Kobe jacking up 30 shots a game shooting at 33%. Lin said last year in LA was the toughest year of his career so far. Bryon Scott sucks as a coach. I fully expect he will be fired soon. Houston started good but then they got ball hog Harden. It is hard to shine when everything funnels towards one guy. I honestly don't believe those types of teams relying on 1 or 2 superstars will ever work. Spurs is what basketball should be about and Charlotte can do a lot worse than playing like that. I also like the Warriors. They also play like that and that's how basketball should be played.

Charlotte might not seem ideal at the start, but it looks like a great fit for Lin and the Hornets. It seems Lin finally got some good teammates like Kemba, Al, and others that genuinely want to play as a team. There does not appear to be any superstar wannabe ego in the group so that's a plus. I really do believe this could be a breakout year for Charlotte and Lin. Lin fans got a lot to look forward to this year, finally.

Lin wasn't the best fit with Houston or L.A. but it is what it is, on the positive front those 3 years allowed him to become more versatile and adept at playing the SG position.

Houston is a good team as they have a few really good players, the question is how they will utilize Lawson with Harden. L.A. has decided to take the D.Russell route over Okafor which I think is a mistake but that is their direction. I believe that the true impact for them happens after Kobe retires anyways (and Byron gets fired lol) which they will then look to lure in a big name FA like KD. Until then they're just grooming Randle, Clarkson and Russell but won't be anywhere close to contending.

Lin made a smart choice for himself as he wants to up his stock value before the new CBA and so far Charlotte looks like a great fit. What is a bit surprising for me though is the great team dynamics already, but it's only preseason....

[Vae Victus]

Hopefully Lin starts pulling up aggressively from range if he's open. After suffering the **** of last season Lin will be highly appreciative, if Clifford can run some semblance of sets, encourages ball movement, and if teams aggressively pack the paint to stop Big Al/limit penetration will get MANY open looks for himself or on the secondary pass to another shooter.

Curious to see what Lin does now, now that the China trip is over. Obviously back state side he wont be given the same amount of lee way as in China, so i wonder how that'll affect hsi aggressiveness.

[leeramundo]

Hopefully Lin starts pulling up aggressively from range if he's open. After suffering the **** of last season Lin will be highly appreciative, if Clifford can run some semblance of sets, encourages ball movement, and if teams aggressively pack the paint to stop Big Al/limit penetration will get MANY open looks for himself or on the secondary pass to another shooter.

Curious to see what Lin does now, now that the China trip is over. Obviously back state side he wont be given the same amount of lee way as in China, so i wonder how that'll affect hsi aggressiveness.

Considering that he was plenty aggressive and played very well in our first PS game vs Orlando, I doubt the change in scenery would change his aggression much. How he actually does we will have to wait to see.

[razsan]

"Why does she wear so much Pink? They haven't explained that yet Chow....They should call this, Sad redhead goes to the dance."

I'm thinking Emmy for Lin. Best portrayal of an non-accented ethnic role by a basketball player with ancestors from the country of origin, commenting on an iconic 80's movie that none of us liked.

http://www.slamonline.com/media/slam-tv/jeremy-lin-makes-a-cameo-in-fresh-off-the-boat-video/

[spaceballer]

(Warning: this is going to be a long post.)

I have to say that I'm pretty jazzed about the way I'm seeing him play this preseason. I don't mean the usual Linsanity-esque adulation or fan-gushing over points, or assists, or passing or shooting. We already all know he can do all that.

No, what's really excited me is to see the way he's moving off the ball this preseason. I'm not sure if this is because of Cliff's offensive schemes and Lin being more SG, or it's just because of Lin's natural progression and improvement as a player over the off-season.

But it's pretty amazing when you look over the way he's added new elements and improvements to his game every single year. I'm sure part of it is hard work and effort, and intelligently planning out his offseason training needs. But part of it also seems to be just due to a serendipity that's just striking when you look back at the pattern of how he's basically been forced into these improvements.

His first offseason happened to coincide with the Lockout. This meant while everyone else was bemoaning the lack of games, he ended up with an extended off-season with extra months to work on his improvements. He worked with Sparta Science to build up his lower body strength because he wanted to be able to jump higher. The result was that the improved lower body strength allowed him to maintain stability and absorb contact during penetration and still finish And-1 layups, a signature play during Linsanity.

The next offseason, following the Linsanity critiques of "can't go left", he spent the summer working on his ball-handling and going left.

You could see during Rockets Year One, that he even made an effort to go more left than right, in order to put his training into practice. Going left was no longer a huge weakness that opponents could exploit. Unfortunately, and here is where the weird aspect of chance intervenes, with the addition of Harden, Lin's off-season focus of ball-handling and going left was squandered because now he was asked to be a spot up shooter and not handle the ball.

So, in the off-season after his first year as a Rocket, he focused on his 3pt shot. His goal was to make himself a good 3pt shooter in order to be able to play next to Harden as a spot up shooter. He made considerable improvement in his shot.

Then, when the season began, with his 2nd year as a Rocket, he was suddenly informed in preseason that he was going to be running the bench, and not being the spot up shooter next to Harden that he'd trained during the off-season on his 3pt shot to be. Because they felt they needed Beverley's defense next to Harden (who was playing zero defense at the time), and they saw the previous year that Beverley didn't have the playmaking ability to orchestrate the offense for the bench unit.

You could see the improvement in Lin's 3pt shot and huge leap it had undergone with all that hard work in one offseason (including a game in Philly's Wells Fargo Center with NINE made 3's, setting the Arena record in addition to matching the Rockets franchise 3pter record held by at the time by Robert Horry). But because of his benching, he didn't get a chance to fully utilize it. You can't be both the ballhandler who's penetrating to create open three's for teammates as well as the catch-and-shoot spot up guy who's launching those 3's. His 3pt training was meant to allow him to be paired as a spot up guy with Harden, but here he was doing the penetrating off the bench and not the 3pt shooting, instead.

So because of that benching, and the public reason being "defense" for the replacement, Lin worked hard on his defense that season. Including holding Lillard scoreless in the 4th quarter of the playoff elimination game, until McHale subbed him out for the last possession to allow Lillard to hit the gamewinner and send the Rockets home.

Then, he got traded to the Lakers. Here, all of his improvements he made the last two years with the Rockets were rendered even less useful. The Rockets ran Daryl Morey's analytics focused scoring system of layups, freethrows, and threes. Byron Scott, trying to be the anti-D'Antoni, said no 3's and no pick-and-rolls. He wanted a system with inefficient midrange and long 2's and contested iso shots with poor spacing bigs, the Kobe system. So Lin was forced to once again adapt his game, honing mid range shots. He said watching Kobe do those meant he would focus on improving his midrange shooting ability in the summer. Under Byron's system, Lin had an entire year to practice those shots in game.

And judging by this preseason, Lin's been able to convert his midrange shots at a good clip.

So, now, we get to this preseason. Under Cliff, Lin is showing yet another new element to his game. The offball cutting and moving. I saw Cliff run Lin off-ball through a couple of screens and then catch the ball for a jumper. I also saw Lin without the ball cut into the paint and then catch a pass fired from Cody at the perimeter, for an uncontested layup by Lin in the paint. This new off-ball cutting and mobility and usage of Lin is something he didn't do as much in previous years. I'm excited that he's expanding his game yet again.

TLDR:

Lockout > Better Lower Body Strength and driving stability through contact > Linsanity
Linsanity "can't go left" > offseason ballhandling "going left" > Moved off ball next to Harden, ballhanding (left or right) marginalized with no ball in hand, must be spot up > offseason 3pt improvement for spot ups > moved to bench (3pt shooting improvements now marginalized) > supposedly benched for defense > improves defense > traded to Lakers where all previous improvements for Morey system (such as 3pters) made moot by tanking Byron Scott system of midrange jumpers > improves midrange shooting ability with whole season in that system + offseason training > Hornets preseason with good midrange ability > new off-ball cutting and catching ability as SG under Cliff

When you look at the whole thing in aggregate, it's astounding. No other player really goes through this type of forced catalytic development.

Every time he masters a skill, that skill is marginalized by external factors and set aside, and he's forced to focus on a new weakness and turn it into a strength by mastering a new skill to adapt to his role.

I'm not being an apologist or excusing bad or inconsistent play, I'm just marveling at how the accumulation of improvements with a newly developed trait every year (forced by circumstances as much as by choice) has turned him into a very well rounded and versatile player. And because of the marginalizing circumstances, people may not have seen the full measure of his improvements on display.

Most players are asked by coaches to work on an area, and they focus on that area, year after year, and get better at it. Players find their role and niche, and they focus on improving their skills to fill that role (whether it's spot up shooting for a sharpshooter like Novak, or defense for a defensive specialist, or whatever). Lin has bounced around and been put in so many situations and roles, that he's been forced to improve nearly every area. And he's been successful at those improvements (like the 3pt shooting record he still holds in the Wells Fargo Center in the Sixers arena). And even prior to those improvements, he had a very good skill base to begin with with his penetration and pick-and-rolls and courtvision for passing and assists displayed during Linsanity. These improvements are on top of that. He's a better player than he was during Linsanity.

And he's still adding to it! That's why I'm excited to see the new off-ball moving and cutting element, including for a layup, (instead of just standing off-ball for catch and shoots at the perimeter) that he's added to his game this preseason under Cliff.

And he's not done yet. He's just entering his prime with his most productive years yet to come (he was born in the same year as Batum). He's a better player than he was during Linsanity, with more versatile skills, and he hasn't peaked yet.

It's also happening at the right time, since he'll be signing a contract this coming summer to cover his prime production years, right at the same time as the cap increase.

That whole sequence of forced, catalyzed improvement year after year is just astounding.

[BigSlam]

Got to say: I honestly flip flop between being super impressed by the fans of Lin and super disturbed by the fans of Lin.

It's such a fine line.


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[spaceballer]

Got to say: I honestly flip flop between being super impressed by the fans of Lin and super disturbed by the fans of Lin.

It's such a fine line.


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Well, Lin is Christian and believes it's all part of "God's perfect plan" even in adverse conditions. I'm agnostic, so I needed some way to express my amazement at the sheer serendipity of the pattern of improvements accumulated and the way they've been catalyzed by adversity

And I am genuinely intrigued to see the way Cliff is growing Lin's game by adding these new elements to it that haven't been utilized in past seasons, either because Cliff does understand the nuances of Lin's game, or because Lin has just added another dimension as he's matured as a player, with this new off-ball cutting.

But maybe I'm being premature, and these are just random preseason experiments and not indicative of the way Cliff will use him during the season.

[predators]

Got to say: I honestly flip flop between being super impressed by the fans of Lin and super disturbed by the fans of Lin.

It's such a fine line.


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I'm firmly on the disturbed side, but I can't look away.

(It is nothing against Lin fans; I just don't understand the whole , for lack of better term, "Fan Boy" mentality when it comes to individual humans ie athletes, artists, politicians, etc.)

[spaceballer]

Got to say: I honestly flip flop between being super impressed by the fans of Lin and super disturbed by the fans of Lin.

It's such a fine line.


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I'm firmly on the disturbed side, but I can't look away.

(It is nothing against Lin fans; I just don't understand the whole , for lack of better term, "Fan Boy" mentality when it comes to individual humans ie athletes, artists, politicians, etc.)

This is nothing compared to primary season, which is arguable much worse than the general election. Especially when you have to switch candidates and shift your support to a different campaign when people drop out.

And this is just people talking on the internet, not in addition to phonebanking and canvassing and whatnot.

[Kswiss]

Got to say: I honestly flip flop between being super impressed by the fans of Lin and super disturbed by the fans of Lin.

It's such a fine line.


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I'm firmly on the disturbed side, but I can't look away.

(It is nothing against Lin fans; I just don't understand the whole , for lack of better term, "Fan Boy" mentality when it comes to individual humans ie athletes, artists, politicians, etc.)

Personally I love Lin's game, and he's a quality guy so I naturally cheer for his team. I do the same for Aaron Gordon because I actually know him and his family in real life and have since I was a kid. It's hard not to cheer for individuals in basketball. I'm more a player fan than team fan by nature although I've always cheered for the Hornets because they were underdogs in a small market even before Lin got here. Also Al Jefferson is my bball hero even though some people hate on him, he literally is me as a basketball player with 5 more inches of height lol

[tyusedney]

the system definitely helps. bigs willing to set picks also helps. Lin's confidence is way up, too. maybe that's due to the hard work he's put in over the summer. the biggest thing is Clifford letting him do his thing. last year, BS would tell him to be more aggressive when he's looking to pass, then tells him he's shooting too much when he's looking to score. and when he's playing well, his usage and minutes would be severely reduced in the next game. it was just really bizarre

[vorbis]

Lin really has a lot of irons in the fire. it's cool to see a player with a public face like him have so many interests and be able to speak thoughtfully to them. I think he's an asset to the Hornets both on and off the court right now, and I imagine they will take that into account when deciding what to do when he (inevitably) doesn't pick up his player option for next season. I really dig his game; Charlotte's been looking for a player like this for awhile now. I guess let's see how the season plays out, but early indications are I'd love to have him on the team long-term.