Comment by bilbo0s | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bilbo0s | Hacker News Reader

Hmm...

I looked into his stats because I don't pay much attention to the Knicks.

At any rate I think Jeremy Lin is definitely going to have a good deal of trouble succeeding long term. There are a number of concerns there, but by far the biggest is TOs. In each game he's played, he has had the most TOs of any player. You can coach that away but one of two things will happen, his FGs will go up and his ASSTs will go down, or his ASSTs will go up and his FGs will go down. What you want, for a lot of reasons that most of you probably already know, is for the latter to happen. What seems to be happening is the former. There is a reason it is called a Point Guard. That needs to be fixed or other coaches will definitely take advantage of it when it counts.

You say, "well no problem...when Stoudemire and Anthony get back the problem will ameliorate." It may. I don't know. I would have to revisit his stats at that time. If I had to bet, I would bet that it will get better. But other young PGs struggle with the same issue...to the detriment of their teams in my opinion.

I guess what I am saying is that success in basketball, as measured in rings, requires stats optimized for balance and flexibility rather than strength. When Jason Williams finally got to Miami he was a more balanced PG. IIRC, during the 2006 finals he averaged 12 points and 7 ASSTs. Critically, at that point in his career TOs were under control. Jason Williams peaked at, somewhere around 3.5 a game. Jeremy Lin is averaging twice that at least. Not good. And consider, Jason Williams could make some of that up on the back end with steals. Not so much with Jeremy.

So I can see why a lot of statisticians would look at Jeremy Lin and say,"...well with my personnel...I'll have to pass on this guy." Of course if we scour the web we will find one guy who rated him highly, that is the nature of the beast. But there are a lot of good reasons that a lot of good scouts did not rate him highly. And most strategists probably see a lot of those reasons every time he plays.

All that said, Jason Williams, after initially playing a lot like Jeremy, achieved a REALLY good ASST/TO rating. If it wasn't THE highest...it was close. But again, that's the 12 points 7 ASSTs Jason Williams, which is what you want in a PG if you want to get to a ring.

In response to the turnovers, I want to mention that there are a couple reasons for that.

The first is that he's playing PG and has to handle the ball a lot more than anyone else on the team right now. Combined with his minutes, that's generally going to give you more TO's just because of the amount of time with the ball and the probability of a player of his skill level losing it (although this point doesn't account for other PG's who average way fewer TO's).

Second, he's just started to play a ridiculous amount of minutes over the past week and hasn't had enough time to refine himself yet. Did you watch the first couple weeks of games this season? Because of the lockout this year, there were almost no preseason games and it showed. Turnover rates were extremely high for pretty much every team, so I'm inclined to think that Lin can get his turnovers down throughout the rest of the season assuming they keep playing him.

My last point is a pretty obvious one, but he's still young. A few more years of experience and I expect to see turnovers go down. I watched his 38 point game last night, and while he played pretty amazing, he did have moments where he looked confused and flustered when running the offense.

I agree. Generally with smart basketball players, there TO's go down as they get familiar with the pace and level of play. A comment struck me the other day by an announcer, Lin has never played against 7 footers before. Whether that's true or not, he may have seen a few while at Harvard, but to consistently play against these behemoths has got to be a new feeling. Regardless of skill, it'll still take time to get use to the size and style of the NBA.

What I love about Lin is he is a smart player and a smart person. It's not a surprise to him that he's turned the ball over. Guess what he'll be working on in the future.

Aren't we also talking about a tiny sample size with the Knicks? And one of those games I believe he had 8 turnovers. That could easily be skewing these early numbers.

Is there any evidence of turnover concern from his time at Harvard?

Yes - way too small of a sample and given that, some of the hype in this topic is completely unwarranted. Comparing his PER to Lebron? Let's see him hold a PER close to 30 for a full season, or over multiple seasons.

I hope he continues to do well, but some of the comparisons that are being made are without merit.

somewhere around 3.5 a game. Jeremy Lin is averaging twice that at least

In his first four games of real time, he's averaging 4.25 turnovers, 8 assists, and 28.5 points per game. Deron Williams, a premier point guard in his prime, and playing with talent about on par with Lin's right now, is averaging 8.4 assists and 4.22 turnovers per game.

The turnovers might be a touch high, but there wasn't a moment in last night's game where I thought, "oh, this guy's just taking way too many risks." He seems quite solid.

And any fool watching these games knows that Lin's no Jason Williams.

I think you are over-analyzing. Like others have said in this thread, TO's are expected from PG's. While, these stats need to be considered, you should also consider the timing of these turnovers. If his team is up 15 with 1 minute to go and he turns the ball over because he was trying to test a play etc... that TO should not be given the same weight as the others.

I think the most important stat is scoring efficiency (or FG percentage). Against the Lakers yesterday, he was at 56.5% for the game (scoring 38 points). That is commendable given that it is against the Lakers.

4 TOs is very low considering his usage rate. The TOs will go down once Melo plays iso.

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