From 1:00 in the afternoon to nearly midnight of yesterday,
I parked my ass on the sofa and moved for only the real necessities of life:
bladder developments, food, and to reposition onto another piece of
furniture. At 6:45 I got up to
make dinner, moving quickly enough so as to be able to squeeze in the entire
process prior to the start of the Denver-OKC matchup. The day felt a whole lot like a Sunday in mid-October.
NBA fans around the league were treated to the best day of nationally
covered basketball thus far in the lockout shorted, level-of-play-deflated 2012
season. Over the three games
between the Knicks and the Mavs, the Heat and the Magic, and the aforementioned
Nuggets and Thunder, we got to watch three of the four best players in
basketball (LeBron, Durant, Wade), six of the top ten (add Howard and Nowitzki
-- who is finally playing as such), eight of the top fifteen to twenty
(Westbrook, Bosh), and some guy named Jeremy Lin. The typical trend when star-studded/playoff-caliber teams
face off thus far has been disappointment, stemming from superstars “resting”
on the bench (has anyone else noticed how painfully
boring the Bulls are without Rose) or sloppy play in general. All three of the games covered
nation-wide proved to be riveting because teams were playing to their fullest
potential.
Here’s what I learned from this weekend.
I’ve refrained from joining the Jeremy Lin conversation
because, probably deservingly so, he has erased every other basketball
storyline and there are other ones out there. Lin deserves the attention, but there must be people out
there other than myself (a Knicks fan, by the way) who care about other
happenings. And if not, well I
guess my first two columns didn’t do it for ya, so here comes number
threeeeeeeeee.
After what was probably his best performance to date, the
time seems right for me to start dabble-Lin. There really wasn’t anything more pointless during the first
two weeks of Lin’s run than listening to every talking head in the sports
universe give their opinion on the man.
Jalen Rose shook the sports world to its very core when he proclaimed (I’m
paraphrasing), “I like what I’m seeing, but I need to see more before I can
determine if Lin is for real.” As
if there was any other possibility?
Then we had my personal favorite media-generated question,
“How can these supposed talent scouts have any credibility after letting
someone like this slip through the cracks?” You mean, the same guys that said Kevin Durant was a future
NBA star and Adam Morrison was not?
Are we discussing the same people who probably only get attention when
guys bust or come out of nowhere as opposed to the hundreds upon hundreds of
other young athletes who end up doing pretty much exactly as they were
predicted?
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| Coming soon: Lining in the Rain, Schindler's Lin, and Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Lin (that took about 7 seconds to create) |
In any situation where the predicted success is so far off
base from the outcome, the individual’s mentality and deeper emotional state
are the driving forces behind the surprise. Assessing these variables is by far the most difficult of
endeavors. Lin was praised for
having “great confidence” because he took the game winning three against the
Raptors despite struggling mightily from behind the arc for the rest of the
game. What if he had missed? Would the same people turn around and
say, “You’d really like to see someone in his position show a little more
restraint and stop trying to do so much.”
The truth about player psychology is this: we cannot really know how
they will hold up until the big moments arrive and even then, our
interpretation of their mentality is really nothing more than an attribution of
subsequent success or failure.
Yet, mentality is the defining point between NBA success and bust.
While it is still way too early into Lin’s career to pass any
judgments about where he will stand three season from now, he certainly seems
to have figured out many elements of his game and we can already see the type
of player he is shaping himself into.
Here are the four best and worst parts of his game thus far.
(You will notice I have made the classification between
“areas of strength” and “areas that could use improvement.” To call any part of Lin’s game at this
point a weakness seems inherently incorrect. Every Lin moment should be appreciated at face value rather
than used to magnify his understandably ubiquitous and hopefully short-lived
deficiencies. Have you ever heard
a player get criticized for ball-carelessness eight starts into a career? It’s easy to look at the final stat
line and say, “Whoa, nine turnovers?
This guy has no idea what he’s doing with the basketball.” However, if you actually watch the game
you will know statistics can often be misleading. Lin recorded seven turnovers against Dallas. One came in the first half, and with
the exception of a three-minute stretch where he committed as many turnovers,
he was pretty secure in his ball handling. Lin also played all but two minutes of the game. In any case, these things become less
of an issue as ones experience grows.
Only when a player is an all-star in many other respects do people dwell
on weaker areas. If Lin is already
getting this, he should really take it as a compliment. Lin is either an incredible rookie
talent or an all-star that needs to be more judicious with the ball. He can’t be both.)
Areas of Strength:
1. Mentality (see
above)
2. Attacks the paint
3. Stays low to the
court
These are probably the two most effective aspects of his
game. A lot of people do not
realize Lin is a relatively big point guard, standing at 6’3” and 200 pounds.
He utilizes all of it once he gets under the hoop and as he moves through the
air, shielding the ball with his body and morphing as he collides with would be
shot blockers. However, before he
gets directly under the basket, Lin likes to keep low to the ground, not
dissimilar to the methods used by NFL tailbacks. This fact, teamed with a promising cross over and ability to
split two defenders, makes this the most difficult to stop component of Lin’s
game. If a forward is guarding
him, Lin can get small. If a guard
has the task of matching up with Lin, he can use all 200 of his pounds.
4. Patient and Intelligent
Shooter
Lin has made more than 50% of his shots since becoming a
starter. He’s shooting 38.5% from
long range, a reasonable number for someone who has spent a vast majority of
his time playing with the college perimeter. The bleakest moment for the Knicks in their Sunday game came
midway through the third quarter as they reverted back to the bad-D’Antoni,
heaving brick upon brick seven seconds through the shot-clock. It was Lin’s deliberate attempts to
slow the pace of the game that settled the offense.
Areas That Could Use Improvement
1. Free Throws
Lin has shot 70% from the line since becoming a
starter. It’s not terrible, but 28
qualifying point guards shoot over 75%.
Why am I fussing over 5% (especially when I’ve already said it’s unfair
to hold Lin up to the standards of experienced starters)? Lin has averaged 8 free-throw attempts
per game over that same stretch.
That’s fourth best league-wide and by far the most of any point
guard. He could easily add two to
his PPG with improved free throw shooting. I’m sure he’s already on top of this.
2. Look up when driving
to the basket.
3. Protecting the
rock
While Lin’s tendency to shrink down as he attacks the hoop
is one of his strong points, he needs to avoid dropping his head down as
well. He’s already noticeably
improved in this regard, but there is still more to be made (obviously). This is usually the catalyst for his
inside-the-paint fumbles. The more
time he spends with his head up, the easier it will be to spot open teammates
and lanky forwards waiting to slap away the ball who are always lurking once
you get within ten foot of the hoop.
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| Dirk was able to poke his upper-left-hand-corner arm into the ball a few times this past Sunday. |
4. Stronger passing
Lin’s assist numbers are there. I don’t know how you can measure this, but the eyeball test
tells me that many of his passes don’t have quite enough juice. He likes to penetrate and then kick the
ball out. Even if the recipient of
the pass can knock down a jumper, it just seems like the whole process takes
half a second too long. Again,
this is nitpicking.
Jeremy Lin’s Wikipedia page is longer than that of Brett
Favre, Bill Gates, Beethoven, nine US Presidents, the continents of South
America, Australia, and Asia, and the National Basketball Association. Although these results would suggest
otherwise, he is not bigger than the
entire league…
Other Points from the Weekend
Nobody can touch
Miami. If you take away Bosh and Wade they’re still the best team in
the East. If you take away Wade or LeBron, they are a 60-win team. If you take away all three, they might still be able to get to .500. The supporting cast has improved
drastically and Jeremy Lin was the greatest thing that could have ever happened
to the organization; I’m the only person outside of South Beach who seems to
realize they still exist. Of course, that will change very soon
once Miami defeats New York by 20 this Thursday.
Dwight Howard is
trying his best. He says all
his teammates keep telling him they support him. I’m not too sure about that, but if needs to repeat that to
himself daily in order to maintain 20 PPG and 15 RPG, then I see nothing wrong
with it. He must be staying in Orlando all year at this point, right?
Denver is the
antithesis of basketball and I love it. Six players average over 10 points a game and eight are at 9
PPG or higher. I dare you to find
me a bigger collection of misfits and unwanted talent. Danilo? Nene? Birdman? Somehow this team sits two games over
.500. You can sort of see how this
arrangement would work. Nobody’s
an all-star. Nobody’s going to get
any airtime. Nobody has anything to
play for other than a W. They will
be overmatched in talent on every night, but even in the loaded Western
Conference, Denver is never an easy out – just as Oklahoma City.
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| No, not him - although the resemblance is striking. |
I don’t know whether
my stance on OKC is right or wrong.
I was critical of the team last week because the ball seems to get stuck
in the hands of Westbrook rather than Durant. There is no denying Westbrook’s talent and he dazzles every
night, but I struggle to find an English word that can encapsulate Durant’s
immense and limitless abilities. I
must have shouted, “No!” on nearly half of Westbrook’s fourth-quarter and
overtime shots last night, but I think all of them went in. Maybe he really can drain from anywhere
on the court. Then again, down the
stretch, Durant proved why I say the things I say about Westbrook. Durant absolutely owned the fourth quarter
with a single-minded confidence and dedication to winning that I haven’t seen
since prime-Duncan (Kobe’s got it too, but, understandably so, he must be thinking about climbing the
career scoring list at least a little). He hit two long-range three balls in
the closing minute before taking the ball to the hoop so effortlessly that my
friend I was watching the game (Joe) with thought Denver let him score to regain possession tied and with under five seconds
left. Upon review it was clear:
Denver was actually trying to play defense. Once it got to extra time, Westbrook took over, connecting
on three field goals including one from three-point range. Oh, and by the way, Serge Ibaka
recorded a triple double with 14 points, 15 rebounds, and 11 blocks. I love this team. They’re exciting as hell, young, and
dominated by homegrown Oklahoma City talent.
I’m still not ready to believe this is the type of
dominating performance their stars can deliver throughout the entire postseason. We saw last year what happens when a
team puts too much stock in just three players on a given night. However, these are the wins that will
let them figure it all out.
-AW
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