I think the firing is justified If you are editor/writer you gotten be responsible for what the readers interprete from the headlines even if he's used it before

We have years of proof that Rubio is able to play at a high level(the olympics, the euroleagues as a teenager)

rubio is still only 21, has amazing court vision, is already a capable defender, and has improved his jump shot a lot over the last summer. He's not close to a finished product and his bust potential is lower than Lin's.

Lin has been amazing for this game stretch, he looks for contact finishes well, and for his usage has been great. people want to hate on his turnovers, but for what else he brings to the table you live with it obviously. however, there was a reason he wasn't starting before this, and people have shown that he is running extremely hot on long 2s.

To say that Rubio can "pass the ball but do nothing else" is pure ignorance and you have probably never seen Rubio play or are a huge knicks homer.

The question is, when Lin regresses from this tear(offensively), how far does he regress? I think that it is an interesting debate.

Right now, I think i'd go with Rubio, because not only does he not have the bust potential I see in Lin, I am also a Wolves fan and have seen a lot more Rubio than Lin.

I think Rubio/Lin also depends a little bit on the type of team you have.

Gross simplification: On a terrible team with no first options at all, I want Lin because he seems to be a purer scorer. On a team with several good/great players, I want Rubio because he's a purer passer and doesn't need to score as much.

Not sure why so many people think Lin's FG% is going to drop a ton.

Senior yr in college he shot 52%. Junior year 50%. In the D-league he shot 48%. And now in the NBA so far he is shooting 47% for career, and 50% this year.

Yeah, his TOV% is actually not that bad -- in fact it is lower than Nash and Rubio and just a tiny bit higher than Rondo.

Lin's already out assisting Rubio (on per minute basis) and just about everyone has commented on his ridiculous court vision. He and Rubio both play the game like they are playing a video game with the ability to see the court with a bird's eye view.

Lin's TOV% is actually lower than Rubio's.

LIN-K The Legend of Zelda

i think it was mcbeef that posted that Lin has been hitting long twos at a 60% clip, which isnt really sustainable.

What i meant more was, the reason it's a debate is because we have a large sample size of rubio playing against capable NBA players and just below NBA caliber players. Lin right now is playing at a higher level than Rubio but it's a small sample.

Also, with NBA players there is normally a predictive value to them. For example, there was some stat that said that Steve Nash is the only MVP of the league that was not drafted in the top half of the first round. This shows that the best NBA players are normally scouted and drafted fairly correctly. This story is incredible, and i <3 lin, but you can see why people have their doubts.

So on one hand, we have this one amazing run with Lin, and a larger body of work with Rubio. There are more question marks with Lin than there are with Rubio imo.

And I agree with Danny. It's very well possible that the wolves could be a better team right now with Lin than with Rubio due to them lacking a ball dominant shot creator.

This is can be confusing, but I think this reflects a misunderstanding of how TOV% works. At simplest it's basically TO/eFGA+TO - it does NOT take into account other forms of "playmaking" so Lin is turning the ball over at a "lower rate" because he shoots a ton more.

An example I posted a few days ago is that of the 433 McDonald's All Americans between 1990 and 2008 (this year's college seniors, which probably costs us a guy or two as well) 290 of the 433 have played in the NBA. As I said at the time, there is some bias in there because if a guy as MDA credentials that probably carries some weight with pro scouts, so it's somewhat self-reinforcing.

ETA: those players have totaled over 144 (it's listed as 144 on the spreadsheet, which is at least a year or two out of date) NBA all-star game appearances

Billion dollars, can't even get floor seats. Third row, come on son

All American selections aren't always based on merit either. Notre Dame's lone McD AA that I can remember happened to coincide with the year that the game was played at Notre Dame, what a coincidence. Averaged a whopping 5 points a game as a senior as the only ****ty Zeller brother.

I posted a Pelton article that covers this and shows a stat that includes playmaking. Lin rates a bit worse but is still within touching distance of the PGs people are comparing TO% with.

I didn't disagree with you then and don't disagree with you now, just noting that comparing BRef TOV% between (roughly described) shoot first and pass first PGs should be avoided.

Obviously, it's not perfect. But that's a pretty solid record of successfully IDing top prospects.

Yeah, I'm just point out that while there might be some bias towards playing in the NBA, there's also bias the other way too.

I'm not sure it's "bias" so much as "sometimes getting it wrong" in the example of the ****ty Zeller brother.

This is the MDAA roster from Lin's snr year in HS:


Collins, Sherron
Augustin, D.J.
Henderson, Gerald
Lawson, Tywon
Wright, Brandan
Budinger, Chase
Conley, Mike
Arthur, Darrell
Ellington, Wayne
Lopez, Brook
Cook, Daequan
Durant, Kevin
Clark, Earl
Young, Thaddeus
Hawes, Spencer
Lopez, Robin
Oden, Greg
Crittenton, Javaris
-----
Scheyer, Jonathan
Macklin, Vernon
Reynolds, Scottie
Carter, Demond
Keefe, James

lol at irving vs rubio being remotely debatable. homer ghana homer itt.

It's gonna be so sad when Kyrie signs with the Lakers in 3 years.

yeah, irving > rubio

FYP

And why isn't he sitting next to his Asian girlfriend Priscilla Chan?

I'm not sure if he's a basketball and-or Knicks fan, he may very well be there because his girlfriend wanted to see Lin in action.

It is true BB-reference's TOV% does have some bias against PGs that take fewer shots. However, the difference isn't as big as you are making it out to be.

There is a question of opportunity cost. Lin's USG is like 9% higher than Rubio's 22% and change. The question is... what happens with that 9% usage? That usage goes to someone else. Even the very best players (using Kobe/Love as benchmark here) have TOV% in the 10~13% range (besides, for the most part, 3 point specialists.) Assuming 100 (I know that's high, but this will hurt Lin's case and give us easier numbers to work with).

For sake of argument, the extra possessions (9 per 100/game(48 min) he'll turn over the ball 10% more than his teammates (since even good ones are in 10-11 range) that's still only 0.9 additional TO per game (48 minutes, or .675/36 min) for the team because he's holding onto the ball more than Rubio and making more personal plays than Rubio even though that 9% extra usage translates to ~1.8TO/game or ~1.5TO/36 min.

Is that a problem? Yeah. But Lin more than makes up for that with a lot more scoring and (just barely) more assists per minute. Also note 10~11% is really lowballing the TOV% for people Rubio and Lin would be passing to. The average NBA TOV% is more like 14%.

I think we can all agree Lin turns it over a lot, but that the raw numbers are quite harsh taking all of the variables into consideration.

He likes the humble thing for some reason, unamerican really.