% of shots taken inside the paint is a pretty good way to compare penetration between guards. That is all I was going for. I doubt anybody keeps the actual percentage for how often guards penetrate... although that would be interesting to see.
The biggest reason for his high turnover numbers is that he's handling the ball all the time. This in combination with him playing huge minutes and on a very fast-paced team would make alot of guys look like turnover machines simply because they have alot of chances to turn the ball over. I think the best way to look at if his turnover rate is a problem for the Knicks is to compare the turnover rate per 100 possessions the Knicks had before Linsanity and during Linsanity. Now the sample size is small and biased (they have played alot of crappy teams during Linsanity) but I wouldn't be surprised at all if the turnover rate is lower with Lin than without since they turned it over 17.4 times per 100 pos up til 2 Feb (I don't know where to find stats like this but found this number in an article from 2 Feb about the Knicks offense) which ranked 27th. Edit: I did a quick calculation of the TOV% during Linsanity: Opponent TOV% Hornets 19.3 Kings 17.6 Raptors 14.8 Timberwolves 16.9 Lakers 13.2 Wizards 7.7 Jazz 15.9 Nets 12.9 AVG 14.8 Looks pretty good compared to how it looked before Linsanity. Perhaps it's because of the low turnover rate they are winning!
These Knicks are really fun to watch. They just beat the Mavs and Lin filled up the stat sheet with 28p in 11-20 (3-6 from 3), 4 boards, 14 dimes, 7 turnovers, 5 steals, 1 block, 1 blocked assist and no fouls. He was on the floor for 45:36.
That is very true. He probably has the ball a higher percentage of the time than any other player in the league when he's on the court. In watching the game today, most of his turnovers seem to come when he gets doubled in the paint and is either stripped or forced to make a desperate pass. It will be interesting to see what happens with Melo. You would think that it would become much harder to swarm around Lin.
We could have really used him in LA with Billups going down....but I guess he went where the money was..... When Melo comes back, Lin will have to either continue to play the way he is doing now or defer to both Melo and JR if all three are on the floor simultaneous
Good to have Melo back? 8-1 while he was out with the only loss being by 4 points. On the year so far, Melo has a usage of 32.6% (percentage of the possessions in which he takes a shot). That is really high. He gets off about 24 shots attempts per game, including the ones where he is fouled. He is shooting .399 from the field and .297 behind the arc. In the last 10 games that they have appeared in, Lin is +85 and Melo is -3. Maybe they'll figure out how to better use him with Lin orchestrating. NY fans have to wonder if Melo is a net positive though. How can you be well under .500 with Melo, Fields, Staudemire, and Chandler? That's a current all-star, a former all-star in his prime, and the center from last year's NBA Championship team. One possible answer is that Melo and Amare are pseudo stars (offense only). Chandler has had an amazing effect though (bringing the Knicks from the end of the line defensively to about 10th now).
Here is the article that is getting a lot of recent attention- posted by an amateur stats guy on hoopsanalyst.com in May 2010: http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...yst.com/blog/?p=487 &cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us Pretty specific and dead on in hindsight. He also ranked Landry Fields substantially higher than other analysts. This is a pretty good example of how statistics can be useful- this guy never saw Lin play, but Lin's stats stood out to him as he sorted and filtered. He clearly put some additional thought into his find before writing his entry.
This Ed Welland (amateur stats guy) should be on the Piston's payroll. He reminds me of that GM over in Oakland (baseball) who uses statistics to select relative unknowns in the draft, and as trade targets. As I read that article, I wonder how well he's done over the last 10 years............
The thing I don't get is how an entire professional coaching staff can completely miss this guy sitting down on the end of the bench. Don't they go to practice? D'Antoni looks like a flaming idiot.
What about Golden State's coaching staff? He did spend a season with them last year. Many people think Lin is a rookie.
I heard an interview with Lin and he was explaining his attitude when he got the call to start. He basically said to himself that if he was going to going down (i.e. lose a spot in the NBA), he was going to go down playing his game. So, when he went out there, he didn't defer, he just played like he owned the team. He explained that if it didn't work out, at least he wouldn't be kicking himself later for playing too conservatively. Gotta respect his guts. I think that a lot of guys would step out there and just try not to do anything stupid.
